Beginner Guide to Siege Units in AoE2

[@SpiritOfTheLaw]

Corrections: 10:45 Turks bombard cannons have the longest range at 14 range, not 15. 6:10 It should say DPM (damage per minute) and not DPS (damage per second).

[@onliiie1]

It's the same thing, dpm/60 is dps. But the turk thing you're right on I believe

[@jesusiskingofkingsforever]

Correctus

[@terryfeynman]

the siege tower could be a good unit, if it had the option to garrison archers in it, that can shoot out of it. Even if it would allow just 2 arrows this could be really interesting. It would also make sense to give the archers 1-2 tiles more range since they shoot from higher up

[@rochreech3173]

You know what I always wonder how stupid it is to prevent the turks from getting Siege Engineers reducing their range by one and increasing it by two using artillery .. they loose that sweet damage bonus which makes them superb.. is it done to nerf them? Im still furious as it seems stupid doing so.. The Turks not getting Siege engineers haha

[@reimori6139]

@@terryfeynman they should make it function as a mobile tower (maybe with bonus damage to buildings), if you garrison with archer. Infantry to ram and archer to siege tower. xD

[@plutarchvonpluto6439]

I would like to point out that the petards will trigger an alarm by destroying the walls, while the siege tower does not. Thus the siege towers are more stealthy.

[@septiawanrizky1013]

Not always...

[@schmid1.079]

James Bond would use a siege tower.

[@nvmtt]

i dont think that once you have landed a strike force inside your opponents castle, stealth is a viable option. unlike real life.....the players have full LOS in their own base.

[@nacoran]

@CommandoDude They'd be great to sneak some petards and archers in from behind on regicide.

[@cafedeloop]

siege towers should have archers on the top

[@SpiritOfTheLaw]

Trying something a bit different with this one and branching out into more a tutorial style. It seems like lots of new players are still coming to the game and hopefully videos like this can give them a place to start. If you already have 100+ hours played or have ventured online you may already know a lot of this already, so I've tried to put in lots of clips of onager shots and epic battles to keep you entertained.

[@KarAtFeng]

I was entertained!

[@anirudhviswanathan3986]

Problem is, Mangonel line is completely useless against the AI, who have perfect micro. So anyone moving to online wouldn't be familiar with using them.

[@DanteTaylor]

@@anirudhviswanathan3986 Damn that's so true. That explains why my newbie friend always has a decent army but gets destroyed by AI. Thank you for pointing that out.

[@KristapsK1]

These type of videos help me understand the usefulness of all units because i was an oldp player and i didn't exactly know what i was doing

[@Kevin-wx7wu]

@@anirudhviswanathan3986 you can actually own the AI with onagers you need to attack with the attack ground key

[@joedalton155]

Did you know ? Each siege unit has its different language. For example, trebuchet speaks bongo drums. Rams are the exception, because they are multilingual siege units that learned the language of their civilization.

[@Anolaana]

Mangonel: cribercribercribber

[@joshuagabrielcatindig7607]

Bombard Cannons also have voices.

[@yashovardhandoke1835]

Because rams are operated by people inside aren't they? They swing the wooden log thingy so it makes sense they speak the language

[@elitecamelarcher3914]

Yashovardhan Doke yea, but technically, every siege unit would need people operating them. A catapult isn’t going to reload itself

[@rubenmaessen4724]

@@elitecamelarcher3914 look at the graphics. Onagers, scorpions and trebuchets work perfectly without operators :D. Besides, I wonder how the bombard cannon operator can take so many arrow hits before he dies.

[@MisterBrickFilms]

I've been playing this game for almost 15 years and I still can't prevent my infantry from getting shredded by my own mangonels and cannons.

[@Mbnewman087]

Mister Brick war is messy.

[@Redd_Nebula]

no attack stance is your friend, you just have to pay attention and time your shots for maximum damage

[@garysutherland7004]

As T90 official put it yesterday on a live stream; the counter for siege is siege.

[@davidv4018]

I am the guy that forget about that the siege workshop exists. Trebuchets for life.

[@matthewvillarde5601]

I'm the zerg rush type of guy... The hard part is that I usually do it with cataphracts. Or if I have the leisure of an excellent economy and happen to be using the teutons. I just keep on making teutonic knights while the rally point is at the enemy base. Then I focus on controlling the cav.archers.

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

The Siege Tower can also be used for mind games. Think about it, the only people who are smart enough to use Siege Towers are those who would destroy you anyway. So the Siege Tower is a heads up to your opponent that they should immediately resign.

[@satyakisil4289]

Then again, the enemy would predict the mind game and choose to ignore them.

[@stylesrj]

The problem is that it probably would only work in pro games. Casuals would keep on wasting your time as they don't know you're trying to bluff them or not.

[@jefffinkbonner9551]

The other problem would be that you made the mistake of getting involved in a land war in Asia without the aide of Mongol siege drill.

[@cookieskoon]

@@stylesrj "wasting your time" You must be fun at parties.

[@stylesrj]

@@cookieskoon Umm... what? The OP was saying that if a pro player sees a Siege Tower, they'd think their fellow pro player is toying with them and thus to save humiliation, would resign. A casual player wouldn't get the message and thus you'd have wasted your time trying to bluff them.

[@ivan55599]

Fun fact: rams' animation and an actual attack doesn't ever sync.

[@oom-3262]

this is actually true and annoying

[@test_workshops]

How do I unlearn this fact?

[@nightsong81]

Oh god, it's like the dvd screen all over again...

[@MrMarinus18]

Indeed, that is mostly impossible when using sprites. All units have invisible models and sprites overlayed on top. So the image of the sprite is entirely disconnected to what the model is doing.

[@iTzTiMeToJuMp]

Thats not fun

[@DominatorLegend]

>Play as Mongol >Develop Drill >Build a Siege Tower >Fill it up with units >EUROBEAT STARTS PLAYING >Multi-Terrain drifting

[@KaiserFranzGaming]

Running in the 90's xD

[@martijn9568]

Siege ram, with champions inside..

[@KaiserFranzGaming]

LOL, I've just done this in scenario editor and it's so dope :DD Gas, gas, gas!

[@sauro8299]

Fr4nt1s3k *Running in the 900's -nevermind the fact that the Mongol Empire came under Genghis in late 1100s-

[@Exalon0]

Is this what you mean? kzbin.info/www/bejne/qKmmlWZ3a5uphqc

[@copper2010ish]

1:54 300 meters away WHILE tossing a 90 kg projectile using only a counterweight, that is why trebs are the superior siege engine.

[@cosapocha]

r/trebuchetmemes

[@MajesticOak]

Meanwhile the cannon galleon: "Am I a joke to you?"

[@freefallintoflames]

Technically a ship, not a siege unit ;) There's the organ gun though as well, plus the ballista elephant (which is a weird cavalry/siege hybrid)

[@placeholder1237]

Yes

[@antares1079]

Rams also counter ornlu, very useful when your opponents pick gaia.

[@donmonkee8423]

Dude xD

[@JH-lo9ut]

Some additional useful tips for rams: If you plan ro load up your rams with units, you can set the barraks/ranges/castles gather point directly to the ram. This has the effect that it avoids clutter as your units garrison directly when they are created. When assaulting an enemy town, remember to patrol through the buildings. The rams have very short sight radius, so they are prone to become idle as soon as they have destroyed the first building. With Agressive stance and patrol, they will instead continue even if they cannot se the next building. When attacking a town with several rams, use scattered formation. The splash damage makes them cover a huge area.

[@personalejcr]

Wow I always found my rams standing still in the middle of the enemy base surrounded by buildings, I will try the patrol stance, thanks!

[@kauemoura]

This is another whole level od playing compared to what I used to do. I'd build a massive army not caring about strategy and then I'd hope for the best.

[@PANZERFAUST90]

Are you sure it's not a partial level?

[@brianmayabella5992]

its ok. learning basic or mechanics at full potential is great. When u advance or against a player, then, strategy comes in

[@Vaibhavpandey2]

Large army will not save you everytime. Rather focus on strategy of your army and most importantly your economy!!

[@GuilhermeMiranda89]

TheViper won some games using Siege Tower for raiding, and it was pretty nasty. Siege Tower can be very dangerous on games without walls too because can put infantry to raid really fast.

[@frikativos]

TheViper could win you using just sheep.

[@GuilhermeMiranda89]

@@frikativos he is amazing, but not that much. Lol

[@rickychardzz]

Guilherme M he does it so well with g-bettos because they dont have alot of hp

[@noxious8]

Viper used Gbetos which made the towers even faster: clips.twitch.tv/AthleticRefinedTrayLitFam?tt_medium=clips_api&tt_content=url

[@friendguy13]

@@noxious8 Lol fucking siege tower APCs.

[@defroes6792]

Since they added the siege tower I've always thought there was a lot of potential in the idea. How I'd rework it is: siege tower available in Imperial instead of castle, it's slowed down a fair bit, garrisoned units can fire arrows from it (with relatively short range and no minimum range), and once 'emplaced' at a wall it essentially acts as a bridge and units tasked to an area within the walls will behave as if the wall segment it's on isn't there and just walk straight through/over (obviously with a garrisoning and ungarrisoning animation). The second part of this rework, is the introduction of their new castle age counter part, the siege ladder: very cheap, with decent pierce armour but low HP, no attack and no melee armour. They would essentially fulfil the 'bridging' role of the siege tower exclusively and with much lower resilience but also a greatly reduced cost and greatly increased speed. Essentially, once the ladder is emplaced at the wall segment, friendly units can cross that piece of wall indefinitely until either the ladder is destroyed (weak to melee damage, but can only be melee attacked from the same side of the wall it was deployed from) or the player controlling it moves it elsewhere. It has the same weakness to double walls, but its lower investment cost makes it a more attractive option in case you happen to find a spot to get through and siege towers take on more of a slow push role as beefy support units (like war wagons, ballista elephants or elephant archers)

[@aballearemi7498]

You almost just described siege towers and ladder from stronghlod, released in 2001. And guess what ? It was awesome.

[@Kevin-wx7wu]

1:57 pre patch 1.0c bombard towers did melee damage... To keep in mind if you think of playing the original game

[@KaiserFranzGaming]

Wow, that's why I always have this bad feeling about sending rams to a bombard tower... I've been playing Age of Kings from original CD since I was 3 years, back in year 2000. This comment gave me flashbacks of bombard towers melting rams like nothing! :D

[@andrewramadhanar]

at first i thought it was a bug. but hell, bombard tower cant outrun ram anymore

[@Kevin-wx7wu]

@@KaiserFranzGaming I know what you mean, it confused me when I came back to the game around 5 years ago since before I got hd I also played with the original CD

[@JNCressey]

Wondering why they didn't just implement a cannonball/rock damage type.

[@freefallintoflames]

@@JNCressey Even with 1 damage against Rams bombard towers can still be really oppressive. It does look weird to have cannonballs raining down with little damage, but there's no balance reason to increase damage output.

[@padpai_]

Her: wanna come to me? Me: i can't, i'm a 90kg stone. Her: i'm 300 metres away Me: 1:53

[@catrielmarignaclionti4518]

¿?

[@catrielmarignaclionti4518]

ah, lol.

[@jojojlc7070]

r/trebuchetmemes

[@mohammedaljaberi2366]

how did you knew your weight.

[@franzfakka1417]

this is the stupidest comment ive seen in a long time and it deserves every like that it can get

[@slyfoxrodney395]

Siege Ram: Boop the enemy to death at close range. Trebuchet: Bap the enemy to death at long range.

[@michaelstekelenburg3689]

2:00 Young players don’t know. In the very original Aoe, bombard towers would take rams easily with two shots.

[@Volcano4981]

They used to deal 120 *melee* damage and still improved with Fletching, Bodkin Arrows and Bracer. So op. XD

[@Hhagfsygbabsghs]

yeah i was wondering too.....i remember bombard towers were the counter measure to a sea of rams....

[@danieltan7344]

Still remember the day that a single bombard tower with two keep in a span of 15 tiles is enough to ward of any attacks that doesn't involved either bombard nor trebutchet. Long live the 'original' AoE :)

[@CannibalSoggoth]

or the Korean siege onager being the most destructive force on earth, outranging anything and probably dealing the most damage of them all

[@caualongshanks]

i played the original but i didnt know that (until now) because i never use gunpowder XD

[@Chenla]

The times when Siege Tower actually fired arrows, FeelsBad.

[@jondeoliveira8248]

Siege Tower should allow ranged units inside to fire.

[@RedShocktrooperRST]

Wait, you mean the siege tower used to be the time-displaced counterpart of the APC from modern setting RTSes?

[@Chenla]

Original siege tower fired arrows but could not transport people over walls.

[@Avinash_Lincoln]

Yeah they should really give that back

[@satyakisil4289]

You could only use them in campaigns/scenarios back then. AoM Seige Towers can still do both(transport+attack).

[@todayppp]

About friendly fire of trebuchet, there is an exception: Britons with Warwolf technology. After researching Warwolf, trebuchet can damage friendly unit.

[@adnanhuzaifa6391]

@ i dont think so in de they removed friendly fire from trebs

[@cairnarunir]

For the siege tower, I usually build one to give the villagers with my army a place to hide. This let's them stay near to the sieges I need to repair, but makes it harder for enemy archers to snipe them

[@ThePallidor]

And for strategic quickwalls for battlefield manipulation.

[@joshuagabrielcatindig7607]

Medieval repair IFV!

[@jamesinciardi5099]

One more thing I like about onagers: They work well defensively. I’ll post a few them behind a wall at intervals alongside some towers and set them to stand ground. This works better than towers alone because towers don’t do that much damage, takes them too long to kill a large group of invaders, and can’t hurt rams. Onagers used in conjunction with towers will beat invading armies into roadkill, destroying rams and making it impossible to break through the wall. Try this against the AI sometime. Given the right circumstances, the AI will continuously send entire armies to their DOOOM....

[@orirune3079]

Yes! When I have a chokepoint wall and I want to ensure the enemy doesn't break through, I position an onager or two on the other side. It quickly kills any rams or melee units trying to break in. The main threat is other onagers (or bombards) but usually at that point I have enough time to get more military there to fight them off.

[@reubendias18]

Every siege unit... But where's the organ gun?... And is there a navy video coming anytime soon? :(

[@arcticbeak]

Petards and Ballista Elephants also came a bit short

[@Hamirubi]

I wished to see the organ gun too, perhaps in comparison with the scorpion.

[@samphelps856]

He's already done a whole episode just on the organ gun

[@AllenC1x]

He already made an all navy video

[@SenorFlamingo]

we need da orjan guns man

[@dschlangoe6255]

1:55 and i would hope they're using exclusively 90kg projectiles. Excellent use of the meme sir

[@filipzdarilek6274]

SoTL: Siege Onager is the most expensive upgrade in the game. Elite War Elefanto: *Are you sure about that?*

[@TheRealXartaX]

Petards in siege towers? Siege towers of peace

[@honkai8692]

I love his calm vioce so much that I click one of his video, regardless what it is, like a civ overview or unit break down, and just leave it on and doing something else.

[@austin30233]

Hey, Spirit. Can you do a video on monk conversion times? Is it random? Do missionaries convert faster? Are light Calvary really resistant?

[@freefallintoflames]

Would definitely be an interesting topic for a video, but for now you can read up on it here: www.aoe2sheet.info/knowledge_base.html#monk-conversion

[@KARTIKEYA007]

He already compared missionary and monks

[@theraven7484]

I am actually happy that there are youtubers who still make videos of this game, i remember this game, how my mom gave me the disc, it was writtem "Age of empires 2" using a marker, i played it and boy was i a passive guy, i was afraid to attack, but i managed, when i reached the population limit, but i had fun, i still play it today, back then i did not know what i was doing, nor what the campaigns were avout, i just played, now, i understand everything, my favourite probably campaign is Joan of Arc, it actually gave mw feelings, the voices were also awesome, hope u keep up with the vids!

[@rbnbadri1]

You could have mentioned that Scorps have 0 melee damage in addition to the 12/16 pierce... This causes 3 damage to the Ram line and hence, they are a decent counter to them...

[@danieltan7344]

but one hit from ram? Don't think so....

[@tylertietjen8315]

I just got back into aoe2 with the definitive edition and your videos help tremendously keep it up! 👍

[@TurboDiego37]

Wait, so villagers have a +3 bonus against rams?! Well, the more you know

[@rovsea-3761]

All melee units do, effectively.

[@Nico-kd7uz]

Rams have -3 mele armor. So every mele unit deal extra 3 damage vs rams. That also apply to chukonus arrows

[@chrisdaley2852]

​@@Nico-kd7uz And scorpions. They can actually shred rams when massed.

[@TurboDiego37]

@@Nico-kd7uz so chukonus arrows and scorpion bolts are considered melee by the ram?

[@Nico-kd7uz]

@@TurboDiego37 yes

[@seiyaryuuguuin2332]

Just wanted to say, your level of understanding of this game is, well outstanding and impressive to say the least. Shows me how much I really never understood as a kid about this game

[@SamNg311]

14:10 "Hey Siege Tower, we can't access to those Houses. Drop us here!"

[@bakohuston2161]

AoE1 and AoE2 were the first 2 games i played constantly in my childhood. Thanks for this detailed info.

[@johnapple6646]

pROSTAGMA? Oh wait wrong channel

[@KaiserFranzGaming]

Malista!

[@elrincondejack]

@@KaiserFranzGaming Metalephs

[@MegaFarinato]

zug zug?

[@danielorlandoguerraperez4634]

TITANOMACHIA!!

[@Robin-hi4vj]

Kalos, vulume

[@myhatisonfire]

Thank you for these guides, it really helps players like me who are coming into this game fresh for the first time

[@ulfsarksvartblot3899]

Imagine you could drop archers ON enemy walls, so they have to build a siege tower as well to move melee units on the wall... or try to kill them with archers but with a low ground deficit

[@desertwandererr7370]

Now you're thinking of Stronghold lol

[@ahmadtarek7763]

Despite this channel making less and less videos recently , it doesn't lose quality or enjoyment value . I hope u never stop ,man .

[@MrDoroh]

>300 meters away. Nice.

[@xotl2780]

Old memes

[@twoboxtoofurious]

Please Spirit, make more videos like these. You are THE only guy making real content about this wonderful game. I love your channel. Make more strategy, unit comparisons, etc. I really enjoy your experimental scientific approach to AoE2. Part of the neverending fun in AoE2 is discovring all the units, attributes, and interactions!

[@Kogoso]

I'm pretty sure you meant DPM at 6:00 or else those town centers would be obliterated in seconds.

[@SpiritOfTheLaw]

lol good point

[@xotl2780]

Age of Mythology dealt with the Siege Towers' problems by adding a ranged attack and a battering ram (and also restricting access to Egyptians only). It didn't make them the best siege units in the game but it did make them viable options once you had access to them. Also I'm in the Patreon support feed! Woo! Go Spirit of the Law! Go Team AoE2!

[@shagohodred2464]

Weren't Heliopolis or whatever they were called greek units?

[@GatlingGun12]

@@shagohodred2464 heliopoli were a different thing, they fired ballista bolts at short range instead of having a battering ram. Fills essentially the same role, each of the three first civs had a close range and long range siege option. Not so sure about atlantean and asian civs off the top of my head.

[@xotl2780]

@@GatlingGun12 I neaely forgot about Heliopoli! They were basically the same thing but their ranged attack was anti-building whereas the Siege tower shot arrows to defend itself. Atlanteans had the fire siphon (basically a short range ballista in practice) as their main siege weapon but they also had a lot of myth units to fill in the role, too. Asian Gods were beyond my time though.

[@MijnAfspeellijst1234]

i don't play aoe but i like these video, am i strange?

[@Freakschwimmer]

I don't even a Copy of AoE thats newer than the original AoE 1!

[@osrictemper4225]

Spirit of the Law is just great and addicting that i'd watch him even if he'd review toilet cleaning stuff ;) There is nothing strange with u :)

[@cosapocha]

Yes, you are a very special snowflake

[@PANZERFAUST90]

Yea now go away.

[@davidv4018]

I used to do the same with starcraft.

[@personplaceson4488]

Why? Why am i watching these? I have not played this game in years since i lost the disc but here i am watching these one after another. That being said great work on the videos.

[@Jack-jb4qd]

0:56 anyone else notice the moon walking elephant?

[@zurel7995]

WTF LOL

[@thescribe509]

One of the biggest bonuses the siege ram gets is increased LOS. Siege rams are so much cleaner base-erasers because they see further and find the next target to hit readily, pretty much everytime. You'll sometimes see a spared building here and there on the edges, but it'll get 99% of the work done with very little micro once you set them on their way, assuming you keep them alive.

[@guyman1570]

Or... just press R and set it to target the far side of the base. GG regardless

[@UM96lol]

Great video, but I think Petards should be included in it.

[@raskolnikovsghost2701]

i think the only reason he just mentioned them, is because like the organ gun he's got a full-length video just about that particular unit. He's not going to go over something he's already covered unless it's pertinent to the topic at hand. Plus going in-depth into the petard unit took 13:49 so if he went into that depth again the video would be almost 29 minutes long. Plus you can just go watch that video... Just search petards SOTL

[@equilibriajorvingia9705]

Great finding my Favorite AoE II KZbinr is still uploading to this day

[@AmmarFarisA]

Make Siege Tower Great Again! I still questioning about the rams tho'. Why Bombard tower cannot destroy rams with ease (or even trebuchet maybe)?

[@victordrouinviallard1700]

@@Mixcoatl I think he meant bombard tower

[@Nico-kd7uz]

Bombard cannons destroy rams cuz they deal mele damage. Bombard towers don't cuz they deal pierce damage, like trebuchetes

[@Tzeentch711]

I remember bombard towers doing melee damage but it was patched in the conquerors expansion, possibly because walls with those towers were untouchable by rams.

[@TheSpicyLeg]

Amteloletom Historically rams were used to break gates or heavy doors. Think Braveheart or Lord of the rings in Rohan. Defenders would open murder holes and drop heavy rocks, pitch, or fire missiles. So rams were designed to protect the men swinging the actual ram from these types of attacks. Usually they built a roof over the ram mount and frame, then covered the top in cloth and animal hides soaked in water so it wouldn’t catch fire. Obviously, AoE2 is not supposed to be reality, and a common defense was a moat (so you couldn’t push the ram close enough to the gate) or to have a small exit where soldiers could run out and suicide to kill the men operating it or lighting the underside on fire. There was even instances where defenders would dig pot holes so the ram’s wheels would get stuck or spread caltrops all around that made pushing the ram difficult - the ram’s operators had to run out and try to move the caltrops from out in front of the ram, thereby exposing themselves to the defenders. Anyway, the ram was gone as a weapon before cannons became popular, because unless a defender screwed up or was a traitor, most castles either surrendered or were sieged until everyone starved. The ram was next to useless against stone walls and iron portcullis gates, and advances in engineering the land around castles meant getting them anywhere near close enough to use was either incredibly difficult or outright impossible. Though, you could make an argument that the ram lives on in modern tanks.

[@AmmarFarisA]

Yeah, I think in the real-life Battering Ram was a very old siege weapon. It couldn't match the gunpowder-based siege weapon later in medieval warfare.

[@aminj9526]

Good video. For scorpions, as you noted, a key difference from onager line is that they don't have friendly fire. This really helps in a support role in team games, particularly with multiple battle fronts going on and choke points, as you don't hurt allies and can have a big impact. Team games also allow you to benefit from ally bombard cannons (if playing one of the scorpion focused civs from the base game that were not given their own bombard cannons back when the game was balanced). I woudn't use scorpions in a 1v1 or a FFA except in certain conditions - they are best in team games. Also while scorpions do fairly well against most archers, do not even bother with them against Britons - the extra range will decimate your scorps. Actually, range is the main weakness - all their proper counters have equal or greater range that can take out your scorps and the defending melee units around them.

[@srbishkrst]

2:05 back in the days the bombard tower 2 shotted a ram

[@jamesinciardi5099]

Hi. I liked the video a lot! Here’s one thing I like about the siege towers: I like to create masses of armies, like a hoarde of huskarls or woad raiders. Unfortunately, if I send against a few onagers, they get wiped out. However, if I put them in a siege tower first, they can close the distance and knock out the onager before it kills the rest of my army. This works well when the opponent is using a bunch of monks too.

[@soyborne.bornmadeandundone1342]

Damn unmanned magical siege weapons...

[@bb-es4vx]

I've never played a game in AoE. Why tf I'm watching your channel and why I like it?

[@raygreen2134]

There's one odd feature about the battering rams where they could attack wolves at 1 hit and get no damage at all

[@DaddyMouse]

THE INTRO IS BACK Hell yeah!

[@yokatta-f]

Hello chess lovers, Suren here oh, wait, wrong channel.

[@rbaleksandar]

You forgot to mention the murder holes upgrade, which removes the minimum range from defensive structures. If your civ doesn't have it, you can easily annihilate a castle with a single ram. The garrison feature in such situations is also exceptionally useful, since the ram with soak up the damage from the structure and you can then unload the units inside at the front door thus preventing them to take any damage at all.

[@oscars7948]

More games played by you SOTL..

[@jamesinciardi5099]

You’re definately right about the bombard cannons being “squishy”. That’s the main reason why I don’t use them. They can be doing just fine, then I’ll move away from them to manage my army or my navy. When I come back, they’re all dead! That’s why I hardly ever use them. They’re just too expensive and can’t take very much damage. They work great while they’re alive, but they’re a “well it was good while it lasted” kind of unit.

[@Tess_Steckles]

Did they ever fix the bug where chemistry made units fire slower?

[@Sayujya09]

Yes, in HD it is fixed.

[@BennyGruenGelbRot]

Soo... now i just need to rewatch this 100 times to remember all this :D great work, thanks :)

[@dennisjonker4804]

15 range cannons? Did I miss a meeting or are Artillery Cannons still 12+2 = 14?

[@SpiritOfTheLaw]

No, you're right. I forgot Turks don't have the +1 from siege engineers.

[@progamer-cn9vk]

12+2+1(siege engineers) And that +2 is specific to turks everyone else gets only 13 range if they get siege engineers

[@dennisjonker4804]

You had me worried for a second. I almost thought I overlooked something myself. XD Which would be odd as Turks are my favorite Civilization.

[@dennisjonker4804]

I did not take account of All Techs being a condition listed.

[@brothir]

Siege Engineers

[@TheUltimaxxxx]

Nice video. About siege towers I think 1 small and situational advantage compared to petards is that they don't trigger any alarms since the wall is not destroyed.

[@GarkKahn]

Hi i'm here to learn what the hell siege towers do None of us did xD

[@abthetheic4391]

I used to play this game back in school days. Even now I catch up on your vids and other interesting streams every now and then. Personally I like the original and conquerors civs as I feel they have more connect to the ambiance. Every later addition just becomes more and more exotic and thus the game now requires lotsa rebalancing and patches every now and then. On the optimistic side though, it also means the community is alive, well and budding! Kudos to you SoTL for such dedicated content! Cheers! 😄☕

[@Robert-vk7je]

What about the Orjan gun?

[@micahbush5397]

Rams countering siege has been a lot more relevant since DE came out; the AI knows about this strength and will use it quite frequently. In fact, seeing a Ram approaching my siege is as scary as the conversion alarm at this point.

[@Kernel15]

Have you watched TheViper's "How to Siege Tower"? :P

[@KadlecSvk]

that strat is hilarious yet effective!

[@aliencatcrew3336]

Because of you, I'm plugging in my laptop and starting an AoE 2 game RIGHT NOW. YEAHHHH

[@TenderWhale]

It’s not about effectiveness, it’s about how dope it looks when you got a line of Trebuchets firing on a castle!!!! Jk lol

[@ziyulin2721]

Suggestion to make siege tower more valid and versatile: Siege tower has low initial speed (maybe same as ram) when ungarrisoned. However, every infantry garrisoned will increase its speed significantly (like 4 garrisoned will make it as fast as it is currently) while every archer garrisoned will make it fire an additional arrow.

[@mkirules]

1:50 I see someone has been on r/trebuchetmemes

[@iam4everill]

I like the fact that you synced your words with the music

[@SomethingEls]

Made dinner -> came back and this is up. Perfect!

[@T3AMKILL]

Thanks for the video! One of the best KZbinrs!!!!!

[@VeniVdVici]

This is probably a little late but I have some comments to make. The increased blast radius on rams makes them generally superior to trebs for most building removal, though they don't behave well without micro. Trebs only fire at buildings and other trebs making them helpful for freeing up micro time, whereas onagers and cannons will target units first. Loading rams with units has other tactical uses, like hiding some of your army composition, defending other rams that are under attack in the same group, and helping keep the army moving faster. I tend to use Scorpions as a substitute for an arbalest. They have a slower fire rate, but do more dps/cost and are less hurt by pierce armor. I would not recommend them en mass by their own because of onagers; but having a few spread among your troops can be a very effective way to raise their damage without spending a lot of gold. High level play does like to have a lot of onagers to get results, but this is also really expensive. If you use one or two against the AI its fine. Protecting them against human players can be trickier and make the trade off worth considering. If I have 10 and lose 5, do the five do enough damage in one volley to cover the loses. This video omitted discussing Siege-Ship Warfare. I normally see mangonel line units used, it can work well, but the ships can also dodge and cost less. Scorpions are pretty weak in most cases (pierce damage). Trebs work well, when they hit, which is the exception to the rule, so I would avoid them. Cannons get good damage bonuses but can be easier to avoid than onagers. Despite that, they tend to be more cost effective because they outrange everything but cannon galleons. Rams are not appropriate except to soak galleon shots. Fireships seem to do pretty serious bonus damage against siege. Galleons seem to have a small boost.

[@ryuryu7950]

14:15 i love how the eagle is visible in that awkward scene.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Walls. What walls. We, as Assassins, climb walls ALL THE TIME. These foolish Templars... I mean Teutonic Knights just can't do that, hahaha.

[@mightythistle]

Good stuff. Hard to imagine there would be new players to AoE2 in 2019.

[@moepskie]

Quality content as usual. Keep it up, I love it!

[@m13579k]

the Mongel siege ram moves comically fast, i love it.

[@bdonaghu]

Came for the onager shots, was not disappointed.

[@komodoejderi0760]

You may have the best intro i have ever seen ( sorry for grammar mistakes)

[@stephenh9483]

7:56 this music touches my soul. SOTL is a genius

[@arforafro5523]

A few intresting things to mention about siege units; the Japanese with their trebuchet tech can turn their trebuchets into a bombard cannon/trebuchet hybrid as the faster unpack and pack speeds lets them be as mobile as bombard cannons while keeping the higher defense values of trabuchets, you only miss out on the small AoE potential of bombard cannons, but it rarely matters as their main use is destroying buildings or sniping other siege units. I'd also enjoy watching some changes to siege towers, they cost too much for the little they accomplish, and adding one layer of palisade wall makes their niche use pretty much useless on the few maps it can be useful like Arena. if up to me I'd increase their capacity to 20 soldiers and make them cheaper to produce. Changing it from an unit meant to hop over 1 tile walls sometimes useful as a land transport to mainly being a transport unit and keeping a (sometimes) useful wall-hop option.

[@Araneus21]

1. Put a few petards into a siege tower. 2. Park next to targetted wall 3. Unleash petards. 4. Breach wall If only siege towers could garrison other siege units...

[@christiandelgado3543]

I don't know if you intentionally put the Teutonic knights inside of siege tower but it makes total sense to move those slow f****** insanely fast across the map. HELL ON WHEELS!

[@solorollo9756]

I’ll never forget this time on Amazon tunnel 2v2v2v2. We ended up winning but the second to last team pushed us back to our base with onagers. I did something crazy. I built 10 trebs. I built 50 cataphracts. I sniped all his onagers with trebs and rushed in the cats. Success.

[@houkkiboi]

A mention on the Siege Tower. You aren't limited to 10 units, but once you 'anchor' it to wall and order a large amount of units to garrison the tower, they are unloaded over, as they enter. It's essentially a backdoor. Though you need to keep the way clear to keep them being unloaded (I think).

[@ozdemirozkanoz7315]

i saw many pro players use rams in naval fights close to land. that is one way to use it too

[@markdowse3572]

I am still waiting to play this game. There is so much to take on...... I am glad for help from people such as SOTL = Spirit Of The Law

[@Wiwerest]

I remember that in older versions bombard towers did one hit kills on rams. It did make sense.

[@princessbinas]

Siege Towers seem to be a unit to useful against players who are unsuspecting of the unit and/or don't know what it does. If a player has little idea about them or assumes that their opponent won't use them, then I would definitely recommend using seige towers against them.

[@themightiestofbooshes9443]

0:04 "it was easy to overlook Siege..." I agree. Rainbow Six Siege was very underrated as it began to age.

[@adams9848]

You're saving my butt here, guy. Thank you. Solid videos 🍻

[@Morbacounet]

No Onager Montage ? HERESY !

[@TheSpicyLeg]

Siege towers could be fixed, at least partially, by making them into a weaker ‘tower’ that moves and allows garrisoned archer units to fire like a tower. I would even think they could have damage on par with a garrisoned castle, with less range. Using them somewhat like a super archer, brought along to support front line troops or to drop units over walls.

[@adamalucard4655]

yes,just one small concern,if they are changed that way,it might encourage players to use them to counter enemy's units,not in siege battles,which could be a weird sight

[@ParoxyDM]

Thanks for the video and break down of the different units. I should use rams more. My goto offense is mass cavalry and canons. Expensive as hell but gets the job done. Canons maybe squishy, but they can actually move out the way of a magnolia shot.

[@lucaskang548]

10:26 Spirit of the Law: The Bombard Cannon and Trebuchet are the 2 most expensive units in the game. Korean turtle ships: am I a joke to you?