Are Poles and Bohemians too strong?

[@johntitor1256]

Poles really are OP. Their folwarks allow for perfect 3x3 farms.

[@kellscarthechosen327]

That is true power

[@YossarianVanDriver]

Honestly, it's really impressive balance that even the most "overpowered" civs still only have like, a 50-something % win rate, and even the most "underpowered" only have a 40-something %, you have to really zoom in the graphs to make the differences significant. Makes me feel good about exclusively playing the ones I think are cool historically, even if they're technically underpowered it's never going to be by /that/ much.

[@Freestyle80]

Franks: Lul

[@YossarianVanDriver]

@@Freestyle80 Still only a few percent compared to the balance issues you find in other games!

[@owenpoppe8299]

I imagine the reason poles are so good on arena is because their stone bonus greatly helps a fast castle drop, followed up by potentially the best spammable unique unit in the game. Which also happens to quickly cut through buildings.

[@karonteazt3286]

Even viper losed with that civ, they sux vs archer ca civs and obuch are slow so, they lose vs dynamic civs too

[@daarom3472]

You dont even need to go Obuch. Just castle drop into a next castle drop and fast imp into trebs.

[@theobald_indoaoe]

@@karonteazt3286 it depends on the players and their strategy. Running has been playing with those new civs enough on Arena or on Arabia, and his strategies with Poles are better than Viper's, especially on Arena. On Arena, he was preparing to build a castle on enemies' face, force them to go panic mode. Then, he just left his castle either to go UT later on and surprise enemy who tries to take down the castle or to spam castles while going fast imperial without mining gold too much.

[@karonteazt3286]

@@theobald_indoaoe lol u only need some archers and go imperial and take down that castle, and the lose of viper was in arena with poles, which i said sux vs too many combos

[@daftwulli6145]

@@karonteazt3286 or it is simply a new civ and he has not yet fully learned to use it to it´s full potential.

[@josephdaumen9560]

Sorry, guys. That's on me. Singlehandedly bringing everyone down.

[@johncohnor9655]

Same. I only play Vietnamese, I ruin sotl videos.

[@theyrenihilists]

Vietnamese are going to skyrocket with the elephant buff.

[@LucasAraujo-up4pg]

Heck, im not even mad; that's amazing!

[@araulen4820]

I'm rooting for you!

[@TBPetitP]

I play a lot Vietnamese but mainly against the AI with my friends, but actually if you see another SOTL video Vietnamese is the best civ against the AI since it loves its archers and skirimishers :)

[@elliejohnson2786]

I am impressed at their balance. Most "On-launch" content in every game I play, ESPECIALLY paid content, is extremely overpowered on launch.

[@sjeggy6]

Exactly, gotta respect it when they don't. Though so many people bought this dlc so it should also prove you don't need to make something overpowered for it to sell!

[@Splina.]

of course. It's called P2W - PayToWin misery! how else to convince players to buy new stuff..?

[@elliejohnson2786]

@@Splina. Pat to win c:

[@Splina.]

@@elliejohnson2786 corrected...

[@elliejohnson2786]

@@Splina. Pfft, I thought it was cute! I'd love a pat to win game

[@michaeltaylor8698]

I think the Poles low performance in long team games may come down to their imp age cavalry's weakness to archers. If the enemy team has groups of massed archers they shred the Polish cavalry very easily. The discount on their Cavaliers doesn't matter much if they get killed before they can land a hit.

[@Richiter90abc]

Thats acctually historically realistic. That's also why Poles invested into winged hussars to offset that problem with mobility. Cheers from Poland.

[@Neon-Lines]

@@Richiter90abc No it makes zero sense from a historical point of view.

[@mnmmnmm]

@@Neon-Lines why?

[@gabrielsandstedt]

Winged Hussars with trample damage civ bonus is great against archers. Tried it?

[@Neon-Lines]

@@gabrielsandstedt Yeah, I tried and never reached them to see how trample damage works.

[@zara02caan]

Beautiful graphs. Great statistical analysis. This is pure Spirit of The Law's awesomeness

[@matthewmcneany]

No + 4 armour is absolutly the killer in team games. That's 5 damage per shot from a bracer and no chemistry arbalest against your cavlier as compared to 3 damage for a cavalier from a civ with plate mail. An archer player does 2/3 more damage to a cav player's units in early imp, all things being equal. And yes the price discount is significant but but doesn't translate into a 2/3rds bigger health pool - which is why you can't reliably chose poles in a team game. At least that's how it seems to me from the games I've played and watched.

[@albertoencinar95]

I saybut since the civs tech tree was anounced i don't underdtand why they don't have that armor upgrade just takes all tge archer upgrades but let them have fully upgraded winged hussars

[@theobald_indoaoe]

@@albertoencinar95 It'll make them broken. Polish Winged Hussars are specifically used to dominate in melee combat. They trade very well against halberdiers, even they beat Magyar Huszars as UU. They aren't that terrible against ranged units. They die against ranged units very fast, but ranged units also die to Winged Hussars fast since they have high DPS and trample damage. I just think that Winged Hussars need to get +1 base pierce armor although it'll massively make the Lithuanians' a little bit broken. However, Lithuanians losing blast furnace really hurts the other trash units, their halberdiers, and knight-line when you don't get relics.

[@matthewmcneany]

@@albertoencinar95 They can't have armour for balance purposes in the opposite direction. If they gave poles +4 cav armour then they'd need to massivly nerf to the privilage tech otherwise they would just be far too strong, I think they're more or less balanced for 1v1. They're pretty well balanced for land maps, with a strength on Arena/hideout/mongolia style over open maps useless on water and a very niche team game civ - . It's in the nature of the game that some civs are better at 1v1 and some at team games and poles are just a better 1v1 civ than teamgame civ. If I were to do anything to poles the change I'd make would be to double the effect radius of folwarks so you can more easily trigger the effect for farms next to TCs. And I think they're be basically bang on if you made that change.

[@aralornwolf3140]

@@matthewmcneany , Why do you want to buff T90 farms?

[@Asterix958]

​@@theobald_indoaoe I admit Winged Hussar and 30 gold Cavalier will be OP with plate barding armor but right now, Winged Hussar is in reverse so underpowered. Their Cavalier is better than Winged Hussar for instance. There is no need to Winged Hussar while 30 gold Cavalier exist. Give Winged Hussar a solid buff instead of poor 33% trample (maybe increased to 40%) damage or something else. 33% trample damage barely compensate lacking Plate Barding Armor. Lithuanian Winged Hussar is even better than Poles besides Lithuanian has a lot better late game than Poles.

[@zeflute4586]

So, where can I find Dr. SOTL's papers and where did he get his tenure?

[@namekiannameless2752]

2:24 arabaia huh, interesting new map, gonna check it out

[@jidlan1884]

Arambai + Arabia = Arabaia

[@harishsundar3409]

Well, no matter what it is, it still will be better than current Arabia version 11

[@genstian]

@@harishsundar3409 Aye, they should have called their new arabia version something else. :(

[@petertimowreef9085]

Whenever we talk about the Bohemians I picture a group of avant la lettre hipsters sitting on a faded chesterfield couch with an opium pipe and a scratched violin.

[@talmagejones]

As someone who loves stats, I love the explanation of the graphs, of confidence intervals, etc. that you give in the video. Thank you!

[@Binarokaro]

This is actually really fascinating, I had been focusing so much on their individual bonuses and uniques and whatnot that I didn't realize that when taken as a whole, they're actually quite average, rather than being OP

[@spd7693]

I'm interested to see how Poles will do if allied with Mongols. On paper it looks like that: 1. The scouting bonus will help the player with the Poles actually start with scouts while the Mongols could begin with archers before switching to cav archers in Castle Age. 2. It also is possible the Mongols keep up with scouts while the Poles try to hold out with archers in Feudal and then get faster to a castle. 3. The Imperial Age is nothing to talk of. Furthermore, the Poles can actually carry the Mongols and cover for their weakness in early Imperial. Obuch and Mangudai seems a good combo on paper at least. It also can mean a Hussar Mayhem in the end if the techs get researched. 4. BUT both civs lack Plate Barding and Ring Archer Armour. This may make the raids suffer a bit. Poles make up with emphasis on quantity while Mongols make up with extra mobility. But could that work out? I'm interested to ser how these very unlikely allies (historically) would go together. At least it could be interesting.

[@ryanforgo3500]

I promise you, they are bad as a combo. Not only arbalesters will counter both teams, but also unique units of civs like mayan, and vietnamese will he so utterly broken against a "mongol/poles team" as they both have unkillable archer units which are unkillable by ranged p attack and poles lack of final armor will also make them unablw to stop those archers. If your cavs , archers and infantry can't stop mayans and vietnamese archers " for example" or huns cav archers or magyars cavs archers... etc i don't know how can you hold in imperial age. Mongols and poles, however have 2 of the strongest castle age cav spam. I can see them winning castle age every time as mongols mangudai / light cavs in castle age sre the strongest by far in the game. And poles have the cheapest knights spam. In fact, it is not worth it for both of them to go imperial for the win as knights will get +4 attack ONLY for poles " again no armor, cavalier is +2 attack and blast furnace +2" So it's like just get 6 stables and 40-100 knights out in castle age with mongols mangudai backing you up and some of their op light cavs as meat shields. + some siege.

[@spd7693]

@@ryanforgo3500 Well... with some players like Hera getting the maximum out of light cav and hussars, I thought two civs that could work as an archery civ and a cav civ and might be quite unpredictable, at least early game, could work great together and be an effective team. Also, I saw you talk only about Mayans, who anyways have next to OP archers that very few cavalry civs can counter - Persians come in mind. 2v2 tournaments aren't an often sight as well. Seeing that Poles are pretty much average on Arabia though, while Mongols aren't great on Arena or some other maps where the enemies are locked up, they most likely could nullify their strengths. So maybe a foot archers civ would be a better combo instead of a CA. But who else would benefit that light cav bonus.

[@Davtwan]

“Calvary civs don’t work in closed games.” Poles: “What!?” *Hoof punch.*

[@nekoprincess4130]

Whether the Poles and Bohemians were too strong before the making of this video, it matters little now. Spirit has cursed them to become nerfed.

[@Unormalism]

Watching the Incas in each chart was a real ride. Second least picked, and those sporadic winrates

[@martijn9568]

So um what's causing this?

[@Unormalism]

@@martijn9568 if I had to guess, the Incas have a lack of identity but have solid early bonuses (llama is +100 food available, houses give 10 pop meaning you save wood early on) and a versatile tech tree with lots of counter units. But they don't have that go-to strategy that wins them games (ie Frank Paladins, Chinese Cho-Ko-Nu).

[@torashiki5646]

@@martijn9568 They kind of are generic on everything + got their only strong thing nerfed HARD (trush) + havent gotten ANY buff in compensation + have the worst team bonus. They have good UUs, but they are extremely gold intensive since they dont really synergize with the single trash unit they have, unlike Aztecs and Mayans that love those skirms and pikes. Overall, they need a push into any direction that isnt trushing since the devs kind of dont want them to be a trush civ.

[@themobius5798]

That reminds me of SOTL's observation that Incas are some sort of defensive Civ (like Byzantines). Good counters, can hold its own, but can't close games for one way or the other.

[@Toonrick12]

@@Unormalism That and their Tower Rush was nerfed to the Castle Age, basically making it useless now.

[@davidpereira5969]

Bohemians are extremely strong on arena with wagon and monk combo, but it can get rushed by other civs

[@herotalib9556]

1v1 arena bohemion are insane with fast castle drop and wagon. UU that doesnt need any upgrade and just cost gold and wood which they can get super fast in arena is insane. Only counter is if the enemy counter castle drops you somehow but even then your eco stronger

[@karonteazt3286]

@@herotalib9556 the best meta is halbs+hofunice, nothing can beat that

[@gabrielsandstedt]

@@karonteazt3286 what is hofunice?

[@karonteazt3286]

@@gabrielsandstedt is the ugrade of cannon

[@petersmythe6462]

Interesting the grouping of civs in a phylogenetic tree. I did not expect that data structure here but it totally makes sense. In fact, there's a lot of interesting stuff to analyze here.

[@Neon-Lines]

9:34 Spirit says Poles and Bohemians are among the most popular picks despite not everyone owning the DLC, but completely ignores that people just play them because they're new

[@aaaaaaaard9586]

Sir this is aoe2, people who play new games have already left

[@swisstravellearth6232]

Great analysis as always! I love your content and they way you look at things in AOE2. Please keep going. I would love to see more of this kind of civ analysis / rating! However, I miss your awesome intro.

[@Nathan-zw9sr]

I think the Poles missing the last cav armor upgrade is worse than missing Paladin. It makes them die hard to Arbalests in Imp, and there are a lot of Arbalests in team games!

[@QuintemTA]

Good point. EDIT: Both upgrades missing they're down 3 pierce armour. Which is no joke.

[@whykay1234]

That would be too op they already have hussars with extra damage against archer.and while both of the choices are cheap they can go light cav + knights

[@michaeltaylor8698]

I think giving Poles Paladins (and maybe nerfing the 60% discount down to something like 25%) might be the way to go. Giving the final cav armour would affect the balance of the Polish Winged Hussar which is already the strongest Hussar in the game for melee. Making the Polish Hussar trade melee prowess for a weakness to archers seemed very deliberate. Giving Poland Paladins would mean getting 40HP and 1 more pierce armour on their knights which would make a big difference against ranged units. They still wouldn't be fully upgraded Paladins on account of the missing armour, but that justifies having discounted Paladins, which no other civ has. Plus, this is just my opinion, but Poland should be a Paladin civ. It just seemed wrong playing the Polish campaign seeing my pagan Lithuanians allies with Paladins while I was stuck with Cavaliers.

[@whykay1234]

@@michaeltaylor8698 I think they need a bonus for scout line so they can do better at feudal age... Like +5 attack bonus against villagers so they can raid easier. I dont think they need an imperial or castle age buff they already do good in there

[@whykay1234]

@AlHasan Sameh they have trample damage + you can put a few cav archers or skirms to take out the halbs

[@user-ec8cg1nx8x]

SOTL showcasing the Bohemians' 20~30min peak by showing the castle drop as an example of a cheeky Bohemian play... only to then show the same castle collapsing in the Patreon credits reel once the enemy reached imperial with trebuchets.

[@funny_liquid7111]

Burgundian civ overview coming any time soon?

[@Salnax]

They just got changed again last week, so I expect it might take a bit longer.

[@Attya-y2y]

Suggestion : have you ever done a video comparison measuring the difference between hunting a boar with right click VS using the TC to hunt the boar? Everyone is saying using TC is more efficient, but how much more efficient are we talking about exactly? Let me know :)

[@guillermodiezbazan5638]

Yes, he has: m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/nIXcgKamlMaViac

[@mastemaherald9939]

Just a minor nitpick, the 95% interval represents that when collecting the data with the same sample size as used here, the calculated interval would contain the true win rate 95% of the time (When looking at one win rate at least). It's a bit confusing, but there is an important difference here since the 95% relates to the data analysis and not the win rate itself.

[@fweaks]

The best maths teacher I ever had took great pains to try to explain this nuance, and very few of us got it. But it is important.

[@Alron112]

As a Pole, I have to say they're definitely balanced. :)

[@dimitrigaumann7740]

Me and a friend play arena on a regular basis with a Bohemian fast Imp strat, and poles for the knights behind. we went from 1400 to 1600 teamgame elo and never lost a single arena game so far

[@karonteazt3286]

Ok thats very veeeeery low level

[@WenceslausDerErste]

Bohemians don't need imperial age, just go full clown in castle age

[@toes5032]

Nice!

[@MarianoGianni1]

Good for you both, but TG elo is pretty brain dead until 1800

[@karonteazt3286]

@@MarianoGianni1 until at least 2.2k i say.

[@jamesinciardi5099]

The Bohemians looked really good because they had counters to everything. If they’re attacking with archers, use wagons. If they’re attacking with cavalry, use halberdiers. Hand cannoneers for infantry, and that super-bombard cannon for siege. But I couldn’t get them to work. The problem was that if they were attacking with cavalry, I would send in my halberdiers. But then they switch to archers, it takes too long to get those wagons up front. Then they would switch back to cavalry, but too many of my halberdiers got killed already, so I had to rely on hand cannoneers, which is not ideal. And while I’m doing all that, a couple hussars snuck around in back and killed my bombard cannons! In other words, it’s too difficult to switch from one counter to another. So I gave up on them… unless someone has some advice for me?

[@Leitis_Fella]

I too had some trouble figuring out Bohemians. Castle dropping into Wagon spam worked really well against the AI, and online, most players won't know what to do. The problem, however, is getting to that point. The mining bonus should help with getting defensive towers up in Feudal if you're under pressure. I try to wall like a crazy man even on open maps and that does seem to help

[@herotalib9556]

My advice would be dont REACT to what enemy is doing all the time but go with what you plan and and then ADAPT. Make your main unit and play with it. Usually if the enemy is a CAV civ you really shouldnt go Wagon but Crossbow. If the enemy main civ is Archer than you go Wagon. Then you adapt to what the enemy making to counter you. Also remember with Chemistry your castle are got amazing damage. With Bohemians you really need to PRESSURE hard in Castle age. You have huge advantage with a super strong eco (Fervor, FREE MINING UPGRADES) so you should be able to spit out gold units and castle non stop! If you do get to late game with your Goufnice is insane. They should never die since you should have 6 Herb standing on TOP of them all the damn time! In short ADAPT to the enemy.

[@CrnaStrela]

Also don't bother with Hussite Reform, it sounds good in paper until you realized by the time trash monks are out, it's probably also the time where light cav/hussars spam are underway.

[@karonteazt3286]

Just go defensive pike into defensive castle then boom and get hofunice+halbs combo thats the meta

[@hansoskar1911]

The problem with Poles is that their Berrie position is the most important thing for their Feudal Age play. Since they can take Gold from Stone they can get by with either mineral but if they get pushed off berries you also lose acces to great farmspace. Generally: new civs gain winrate over time so beeing middle fo the table is a really good start. It also makes sense that Bohemians are harder to play. Poles can always fall back on Hussar spam wheras slow civs like are really hard to play from a positioning perspective.

[@terrab1ter4]

Is it possible to show the winrates of Celts without including Hoang games? I wonder how much of an impact his playing has on that stat

[@literalvampirepotbellygobl5629]

Are Poles and Bohemians too strong? Well, if the recent championships are anything to go by, it's actually the Lithuanians and the Icelanders you need to worry about.

[@stefanandrejcik571]

Poles are not being picked they are good at low Elo at high Elo no chance, Bohemians are same but reversed

[@CrnaStrela]

Similar to Goths, they are brutally overpowered in lower elo but damn they are clown in higher elo

[@stefanandrejcik571]

@@CrnaStrela yup exactly that's why I am saying that people are overating them

[@amitpaullakra]

I followed you for the Game, but i am falling in love with the way that you are analyzing the data. Please could you do a one-off video on how you collect the data and how you break down the analysis.

[@210ATO]

You're getting so good that you answer my age queries before I've even said them out loud.

[@nicita27]

Non of these civs is op both good balanced. Good job devs

[@matthieugeorgelin5671]

The problem with Poles is their eco bonus are actually broken (the stone bonus saves a camp, gives free gold similarly to a ressource duration bonus AND is a +50% gathering rate bonus, and the Folkwark altho exposing your eco, is basically a +11% farm GR with some specific uses). But they're just super complicated to use properly. To make proper use of the poles bonus, you must either sell the stone or use strategies that combines stone and gold usage (for instance M@A/Trush, or castle drop on Arena), and the folwark is a slight complication of your BO in the Dark Age and for your boom). The numbers definitely says overpowered, but they're just weird to use in the meta. Same kinda applies for Bohemians. Which is probably why both are really strong on Arena.

[@Thalaranthey]

you're right in a world where theres no feudal. they just get ran over in feudal and sadly they dont really have tools to help it, especially that their "bonus" makes this flaw even worse, putting your vills into even worse position

[@matthieugeorgelin5671]

@@Thalaranthey Yeah that's the idea. Their bonus are nuts but definitely don't fit the early feudal meta

[@Thalaranthey]

@@matthieugeorgelin5671 may be. i also detest the fact that winged hussars are light cavalry instead of being alternative upgrade path for knights (winged hussars were mostly nobles and very well equipped, heavy shock cavalry) and limited cav upgrades in imp... i mean about imperial age is when they rose to prominence and remained unbeaten in battle for over a century

[@matthieugeorgelin5671]

@@Thalaranthey It would really not make sense to make a separate hussar though. I mean, if you want to complain, I think heavy cavalery using sword is much higher on the list for instance. Somehow the Polish winged hussars with its aoe dmg and low pierce armor serves quite accurately the role of polish cavalery at these times: strong charges/engaging power vs weak melee units, but weak to heavy units or missile fire. I mean indeed it feels weird that both kinda serve the same role of cheap but not super tough cavalery, but that's how AoE works. Also it is pretty normal that their cav has limited upgrades in imp. You may call them heavy cav, but hussars were shock/light cav depending on the age, and at no time were as heavy as their French/German counterpart for instance. Hence the lower price as well. Their winged Hussars could see a slight buff, but then they would also need big nerfs for their early. Giving them a clear weakness to projectiles is needed for the meta atm, so that their window of strenghth isn't too long.

[@Thalaranthey]

@@matthieugeorgelin5671 well..you're wrong. Winged hussars were heavy shock cavlary and was effective vs heavy infrantry as well as light. Their mass charge would indeed be vuberable to artillery fire, thats why usually they flanked it. Hussars were light shock cavlary, but polish Winged hussars were entirely different unit. They used longest lances among cavlary units with heavy scaled armor that thanks to its shape was capable of deflecting low velocity bullets (Pistols and muskets from further awat)

[@georgeprchal3924]

All the newer expansion civs seem to get some really interesting bonuses; the original 13 must be jealous.

[@herotalib9556]

I mean Huns still the king. Pretty sure they were one of the first CIV. So idk man

[@georgeprchal3924]

@@herotalib9556 Conquerors Expansion.

[@frankieseward8667]

Teutons- Nah I'm good.

[@CrnaStrela]

Franks cannot hear you from the top of the ladder

[@herotalib9556]

@@georgeprchal3924 lol so long ago cant remember but I think Frank's, Chinese, britons were original civ which are all S TIER.

[@Kaliayep]

Poles are a popular pik, because if they extend their arm onto the polearm fight, they can field some excellent pikemen edit: *pick

[@ondrejhronec9220]

Such an amazing video! 💚

[@airbornefilip9139]

2:19 New map?

[@alexbrennan9928]

Poles missing the final horse armor upgrade prevents them from really establishing their cavalry. Honestly the only viable cav play for them is getting a castle into unique tech into knight spam in castle age. Once it goes imp no +1/+2 means the cav will crumble, esp w/o paladin to back it up. It also makes their winged hussars kind of a joke. They should give poles the imp cav armor, I really dont think it would be game breaking.

[@nicholase2868]

I strongly disagree. They win with numbers. Fully upgraded Pole Cavs are well matched against Paladins when spending equal resources. And Poles will generally have the stronger eco late game. There's no need to buff them in late game, and the stats agree. Early game is where they could use a buff if anything.

[@alexbrennan9928]

@@nicholase2868 late game aoe is about pop efficiency not cost efficiency until gold is off the map

[@MajorTomFisher]

It seems like all gunpowder civs suffer in short games, but dominate in games like Arabia where you'll get a little bit of extra time to boom. Is there a case to be made that gunpowder civs could use a strong Feudal gunpowder unit/defensive bonus, or should picking the right civ for the right map be part of the strategy?

[@SultanFilm]

Turks were first picked in arena, and third in arena wins. So i think its the right map suiting their needs. So if they have protection they can build up and win.

[@juangarbiero2294]

The problem with the poles is that they dont have any answer against an archer civ in imp, the lack of the last defense in cavalry is too weak for this civ

[@NeonLine]

so true

[@ryanforgo3500]

They are held back not by the lack of paladins, but by the lack of final armor upgrade. As cavaliers become so easily countered by literally everything that's not melee even imperial skirms.

[@samarthnagar3856]

When you single handedly brings tartars down by 2%

[@ChocolateMilkCultLeader]

2v2 should be seperated from 3v3 and 4v4. If you think about it, at 2v2 you can still be rushed while in the other TGs you are atleast protected

[@karonteazt3286]

Protected of archers but scouts...

[@medvidekpu7117]

Great analysis, surprising results. Few remarks: 1) if you take say graph at 2:20, should not it have same portions of winrate above and below average (50 percent)? Maybe I am wrong, but should be there some averaging to same number of matches between different civs. Yeah, to have equal stats, you should consider same number of games (say 100) between civ A and B. Real results are shifted if civ A is better than civ B, and at the same time civ A is picked muchmore than other civs and vice versa. 2) I am also thinking, if it makes sense: Lets say, you take Poles, what is win rate against different civs on certain map? 3) I noticed that Britons are often picked on arena, but they dont win so much (kind of surprising). Where players pick civ for winning, and when they just like the civ, or just think civ is good? (this is probably possibility for another video) :-) 4) Is it very different of win rate between top 100 players and first 25% of ELO for given civ? (Maybe some civs are much more micro intensive, some need great decision making.)

[@johnfist206]

A thing to note about the winrates at certain times (e.g. winrate at 20 mins, or at 40 mins) is that people who like aggressive civs tend to like aggressive play, and are unlikely to pick bohemians or poles. Likewise, players that prefer lategame tend to pick lategame civs and are less likely to pick mayans or huns for instance. Do you get what I'm saying? It's not just the civs that are specialised, the players themselves specialise their playstyle and pick civs to match, influencing those civs' winrates at certain times.

[@bargainking27]

Is that an accurate way to interpret graphs showing a low win rate early and a high win rate late? Couldn't it be that the civ is average late game but if it managed to survive the early game you're probably in a good position? (i.e. rather than indicating that the civ is inherently better late, it might indicate that those who played well enough to survive early go on to win the game through momentum)

[@oneirotroph]

+1 for the beautiful ggplot2 graphs

[@justincronkright5025]

The Poles being really good on Arena maps seems to make sense to me actually, since they have access to winged Hussars which do better against the Gunpowder Armour Type with +4 attack. Then they have great early & mid-game growth into a sustainable late game with farms with sufficient/consistent booms from farms giving free food around the Folwarks. The Hussar/Scout line of troops also have extra damage versus archers, so 'anti-relic gathering & conversioning monks' & 'anti-archer/-skirmisher' & 'anti-gunpowder for early Imperial ageing civilisations' alongside ever the fact that they are 'winged hussars' wrapped all in 1 unit which have access to bloodlines and husbandry too. Follow that up with obuchs & you're stripping armour into the late game with cheaper gold costing unit & able to use powerful winged hussar if you ever get into the extra late game.

[@Pantelis_Psaroudakis]

Hey SotL, would you consider making a similar video on some of the og civs and how they are holding up today? In particular the Byzantines, I was surprised they are that down the list.

[@ORy652]

I myself am picking Poles for arena, and the FC+early castle drop with obuchs is tremendously good, I won almost all games (all of them 3v3 or 2v2 though). And my assumption on their arabia performance is: they are tower rush civ, so people probably try m@a+towers and it backfires a lot if not executed properly.

[@reto6859]

Nice Video, but Ive noticed something. Incas always have the biggest bar of variety where there winrate is. Why is that? Im not sure, what that means for the civ. It is not figured out completely?

[@Jose-sl9gh]

Because of the smaller sample size.

[@SpiritOfTheLaw]

It means hardly anyone is playing them since their villager nerf. It's hard to estimate a long-term win rate with very little data.

[@Deleaubro]

I think an easy balance change for Poles would be to allow you to garrison Fulwark. Why should Poles' eco bonus require risk when no other eco bonus has any risk? This way on open maps they can save villagers by jumping into a Fulwark until your army arrives to chas off raiders. Also it wouldn't give them any extra edge in arena. Perfect solution.

[@GunRunner106]

poles not doing good vs blitzkrieg tactics truely iconicironic

[@matheusrios4223]

They suffer from the Portuguese syndrome: getting better the longer a game last since their strength are all on castle to imperial age.

[@tyrant_hermit]

Poles should have the option of garrisoning vills in Folwarks.

[@seanchen7391]

SOTL why on paper Tartars looks like a solid civ, while in reality they perform just so bad? A solid food bonus for all map, nice castle age booming, solid tech tree for archers/CA & light/heavy calvary&UU. I'm not super pro but I think at least they should't be at 32/39 ish like now?

[@WenceslausDerErste]

The food bonus isn't giving them more food, it just delays the farms. So in general they will fall behind in resources and army and CA isn't affordable at higher levels

[@stefanandrejcik571]

Their food bonus was good when u got sheep in feudal and immediately after reaching Castle age aswel, now it's pointless I would change it to having one sheep under TC in Dark and getting another one in feudal

[@esjb1191]

Lower elo players tend to struggle with cavalry archers and quite a few probably forget to even do the tech switch from xbow and therefore die in early imp

[@seanchen7391]

@@WenceslausDerErste I don't get it, they got around 300~450 more food(depend on animal types)to gather, which equals to nearly 2 farms, and you can gather the food faster because multiple workers instead of 2 farmers. Why you are saying "fall behind"? Is that also true for Mayans? And isn't that CA is preferable in higher levels, due to micro managment and raiding capability?

[@seanchen7391]

​@@stefanandrejcik571 I think the free spawns are really good and can be easily balanced, but since the devs nerf that in feudal age, I just don't get it according to win rate. 1 sheep in feudal and 1 sheep in castle(from the original TC) can still be helpful but they just nerf to no original TC spawns.

[@d0nutwaffle]

I find it funny that despite being shown hard data showing middling performance, people here still call for giant nerfs to poles, despite Arena being their only apparent strenght. Im getting the idea that most of these people are arena clowns.

[@theobald_indoaoe]

Poles unique units should be nerfed as infantry unique units while Poles cavalry should really be redesigned. Many lower elo players feel hard to deal with spammed Obuch, Hera argued that their gold mining bonus should be decreased from 1:2 to 6.67:2, and Viper also said that Obuch are ridiculous infantry with the cost. Poles really dominate in castle age-early imp with Obuch or Knights, it's very hard to deal, but after that they seem to have no chance. Winged Hussars should get +1 base pierce armor as Lithuanians lose blast furnace that makes the other trash units, halberdiers, terrible. Paladin upgrade is availabe, but the discounted gold cost from UT is changed to 33% (for instance). This also prevents players from massively spamming knights while imping and makes Poles greater in late game. Another 'gimmick' from Poles is Folwark as it gives instant promising benefit but does cost high risk later on. However, some people in community also suggested that Folwark should provide 5-garrison capacity.

[@herotalib9556]

​@@theobald_indoaoe No offense your ideas are pretty bad. The Garrison idea cool but other than that the other meh. Actually the garrison idea probably will be too op. They would have to nerf the food bonus then. Also idk what elo you are talking about but spammed obuch really isnt hard to deal with. Anything with range will kill them before they get to them. There knight spam scary but honestly poles are very easy to beat in feudal and early castle. If you are letting them invest that much resources into a CASTLE then there knight UT. I honestly win most games vs Poles easily by early pressure.

[@theobald_indoaoe]

@@herotalib9556 Considering comments on community or discussion, Poles play rate, I by myself, and KZbin, even this thread also said that so many clown players want massive nerf for Poles. Tell SOTL then to change part of his content about mass knights and obuch. That's why I suggested many buff changes for Poles in different design instead of nerfing this & nerfing that if they are easily beaten :)

[@herotalib9556]

@@theobald_indoaoe let's be real the way aoe2 dev handles things wont change anytime soon. It took then months to tweak the civ for last 2 cig. All the porple asking for nerf or buff are clowns. The civ need more time. I seen hera lose to poles when kasva recently played them amazingly in Arabia but then I have seen viper lose with poles against other players easily. Just need more time to figure out the meta on poles.

[@CrnaStrela]

Obuch is a really good infantry, but they are still infantry. They are definitely one of the reason for Poles high win rate in closed map where mobility isn't a problem. Also the lack of last armor upgrade on their cav means their winged hussars and cheap cavs got decimated by archer civs, doesn't sounds as good when you put it together.

[@Jasonwolf1495]

Halbs still hard counter hussars too much for them to be good late game to me. Halbs just butcher the hussars too easy and the lack of pierce armor means even just archers or skirts do solid dmg.

[@tcsiyic3584]

Agree. Poles Winged Hussar in real application is just too weak. It's supposed to be a bonus of the civ to be stronger but they end up worse than FU hussar is mind-boggling.

[@Pawn2e4]

@@tcsiyic3584 The polish hussars are better in some situations and worse in others, which seems correct to me.

[@tcsiyic3584]

​@@Pawn2e4 You have to consider how realistic are those situations then. In a 1v1 game where it goes late enough that you needs Polish W-Hussar, the three most realistic scenario is 1. You need a meat shield 2. You need raiding 3. You fighting against trash units. It's worse In 1, FU arbs deals 4 damage to FU hussar and 6 damage to Polish Hussar. 5 HP more is not gonna help. Surrounding archers would be better for Polish hussar, but that is if you can get on top of them. Surround is all about mass number and it doesn't help if your Hussars are dying ~50% faster than normal Hussars. It's worse in 2, TCs deal 3 damage to FU hussar and 5 to Polish Hussar per arrow, while both units kill villager in 4 hits. It's worse in 3, because any decent player would add skirms in full trash fight against poles. Skirms deal 1 dmg to FU hussar and 3 to Polish Hussar. That's triple the Dmg taken per shot. On top of that poles don't have halbs, so you're stuck with Polish Hussar and Skirms. Any civs with halbs + skirms or hussar + skirm even if not fully upgraded, which is basically every civ, would wreck poles' trash army. It's like saying flaming camels are good unit because they are good when enemy make mass elephant army. No, they are bad, and so is Polish Hussar compared to FU hussars.

[@tcsiyic3584]

@@Pawn2e4 Plus this is after considering Polish's unique tech. Compared Polish Hussar to other civs with Hussar bonus like Tartars and Bulgarians, the gap is even bigger. For THE civ of winged hussar, they should have something as strong as Bulgarian hussar, and not what they are given now.

[@NeonLine]

true

[@BVasquezp]

Could you do a series comparing age of empires to other "historical" RTS? I'm particularly interested in Rise of Nations, as it seems to take inspiration from many other similar games, trying to condense their gameplay.

[@shrugheadhaiki5037]

A dendogram! At 3:34, how did you make that chart that clusters civilizations together based on their similarity? Or is it just win rates?

[@adwans1491]

I cant believe that burmese are the least played civ. I Love playing as the burmese

[@holoqofholoqqia9503]

Jesus, looking at the Malay consistently at the bottom of those graphs really breaks my heart. edit: nevermind saw the other graphs and I was relieved.

[@magedbaz6872]

Thanks for great information

[@petersmythe6462]

Haven't watched the video yet but one comment here: If they have an under 50% win rate, that doesn't necessarily mean they're underpowered. People are not totally familiar with these civs yet and sometimes people take awhile to figure out how to use new features effectively in a game (just look at how long it took even the very best Minecraft players to figure out bastions?). Likewise, if the win rate is over 50%, it doesn't necessarily mean they're OP, as people are also unfamiliar with how to counter new strategies available to them.

[@MrSmith123123]

Hey SotL, fellow canuck here. I wonder if there is any use in Walling or double walling around a tower or castle to delay rams/knights melee, or is it not worth it?

[@youtbeuser32]

hey man, are you using R and ggplot for you graphs?, that is very nice!

[@TheSpartan451]

Is there a breakdown of that tree of similar civs and the reasonings behind them?

[@fanaethor]

Not surprised by the results in arena games, considering the first place ir the pole position

[@Booklat1]

haven't played either because no expansions yet but have played against bohemian which kinda of confirmed what I already thought about them. Wagons are very powerful and once they're massed they're not easy to counter. I think wagons should be a bit slower so they're just a part of bohemian compositions instead of the main drivigng force of their late castle army also, totally unrelated but LOOK AT WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO INCAS. They killed my boyz

[@opheliamoonrose4316]

Poles definitely have some stark counters that can give them a brutal time. Incas in partcular with Kamayuk/Slinger or Eagle/Slinger basically nullify Poland's entire comp, especially since they dont get Paladins.

[@azuresentry815]

The Bohemians also have a strong smush on Arena, or just pike-monk on Hideout even

[@dembro27]

Spirit: "Are Poles and Bohemians OP?" Me: *imagines Bohemians climbing poles to bypass walls*

[@rubywest5166]

I wonder if part of the Poles weak early game is people focussing too hard on getting the "gold from stone" bonus, and losing out because they're saving too much for castle age. Likewise, they may not be taking advantage of the fact that even if you have Villagers abandon the Folwark early to make it back to the town centre, you're still up on food from the instant bonus (and indeed, you still have that food if you lose the farm!) Meanwhile, you're not forced to choose between "Sell for more gold" and "Have stone for castles" on Arena, so people aren't lured into that mental trap, and you won't lose villagers to raids, so people aren't misusing those bonuses.

[@nwkr]

Balance change idea: let Poles garrison in Folwarks?

[@Salnax]

Alternatively, cut the price by 25 Wood, making it a pure bonus instead of a trade off.

[@eruidfhjcvbn]

@@Salnax you forgot that the folwark also gives 5 population space like a house

[@InternetMameluq]

So what do the polls on the poles say about the poles? Who's polling ahead, the poles, or not the poles.

[@asdf123311]

So, they are suited to closed maps that go to late castle age / early imperial. Good to know.

[@bionetik]

I know mistakes are sometimes added on purpose to get comments about it, but at 2:23 is a typo. The Headline says "Arabaia" and not "Arabia". Did I fall for something intentional? Doesn't really matter great video anyway, but I would like to know

[@inkarnator7717]

For me, the thing is not that they are necessarily OP, but their mechanics make it so that you have to adapt when playing against them in ways, which are just not engaging. When Poles spam their Knights, which basically become trash units, you can't do anything but mass halb/siege and even then he runs circles around you.

[@petersmythe6462]

Kinda wierd that Poles do best on closed maps, considering that IRL Poland is the ur example of an open map, and is basically flat with zero defensive geography.

[@user-ec8cg1nx8x]

It does explain their rough early-game IRL though...

[@Pawn2e4]

@@user-ec8cg1nx8x I mean, their late game wasn't exactly great if the 20th century counts

[@Toonrick12]

@@Pawn2e4 And late 18th.

[@prasadmanic]

Correction: The error bars in fact show that this IS EXACTLY HOW SCIENCE IS DONE.

[@magedbaz6872]

Can you make a video talking about how to save as much as villagers from an enemy rush

[@SIGNOR-G]

*Bohemian review when?*

[@user-vo1sb3bo1s]

When you see the massive formation of Hussite Wagons, Halbs and monks, It's Czechmate

[@PablitoAndCo]

Polish: Just released and the best civilization for closed maps with a 49% win rate in open ones. Vietnamese, Burmese and Malay: "Help me please."

[@theobald_indoaoe]

Lol. All of them are Southeast Asia civilization

[@CrnaStrela]

Top players agree that Malay is one of the top 5 Arena civs though. But they are indeed tricky to play as normal build order doesn't work and people still arguing on when to click up to maximize the usage of their bonus.

[@theobald_indoaoe]

@@CrnaStrela Indeed, they have big potential when played properly. Both Malay and Celts are the most awkward civs to play for me although I am Malay.

[@yowut8075]

Bring back the guitar intro damn it

[@MisterGordonZola]

Wouldn't the large confidence intervals only come down to less team games being played especially with 2000+ elo in comparison to the other stats? I really don't understand the meaning of "hard to isolate individual contributions to team games" regarding standard errors.

[@MDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMD]

Hey, Spirit of The Law. Sorry this is off topic, but what does AI builder do in AOE2 DE? I can't find an answer anywhere

[@TheDBHC]

Is it that Pols have fallen too far behind in feudal or that the stone to gold bonus makes players lead towards a FC that is difficult to pull off in Arabia?

[@XfStef]

@1:48 Hoang single handedly keeping Celts top 5 in win rate =)))

[@bryanlorenzo8321]

Can we get an updated video for new strats on build orders for different civs? I’m coming back to AOE and I feel that the way I play is soooo outdated.. I’m getting castle rushed and knight rushed like wtf lol is that the only strat nowadays?

[@koyanischannel3001]

What's the music at the end of the vid? So chill

[@dunndudebemelol]

I'm curious to see how civs work on nomad on these stats

[@baron_xd4633]

how are we talking about poles and not touching on the last cav armor upgrade? Its obvious how much that upgrade alone is holding them back. On Arena, poles win due to Castle drop into obuch, not by using knights usually. having strong arbalests and especially bbc helps a lot.

[@aoe4fun1]

Poles are a great civ. Obuch will most likely receive a nerf.

[@leow193]

I did not expect mayans to be played that much

[@Halvtooth]

Not sure what elo you play, but I feel like at 2.5k team elo it's always Britons and Mayans on the flanks.

[@leow193]

@@Halvtooth Well, that's the thing, I don't really play much multiplayer, and I remembered that when playing, if there was one civ I did not want to play, it was one of the mesoamerican ones because they don't have any cavalry

[@rp18125]

since the aztec nerf its the best meso civ in the game

[@foreverjune8]

Pole's villagers are the most ripped. They crush stone with their bare hand turning it into gold.

[@likeaboss1104]

Hey guys spirit of the law here!