Deleting Mangonels 2: The Crossbows Strike Back

[@tvremote9394]

Little known fact in the aoe2 cinematic universe: T-West is Spirit of the Law's eldest child

[@patrickovsiu]

Wow, SotL doesn't sound that old ...

[@Tizian001]

You are all wrong. He's his son in law. Get it?

[@arshiaaghaei]

@@Tizian001 I wish you didn't add the "Get it"

[@tingelbub79]

I feel like T-West is an upgraded version of SOTL

[@IschmarVI]

Spirit of the West

[@Jacks_Suffocating_Nihilism]

Loving this decades-long arms race between archers and mangonels. First we had split micro, now the siege responds with tactical sudoku.

[@API-Beast]

I think this is the behavior for units like Demolition Ships and Petards, they delete themselves when attacking so, when the Mangonel isn't there anymore the game things it is a Petard and applies the Petard rules of damage.

[@iau]

Wow! You may be on to something. The video explains the _what_ but left me wondering about the _why_.

[@Volcano4981]

I think it would be more the Demo Ship behaviour then, but yes, I really like the sound of this hypothesis. Either that, or the modified Paladin thing mentioned as the Mangonel line technically deals melee damage

[@rogerwilco2]

Sounds plausible.

[@R3stor]

T-West to SoTL: When I left you I was but the learner, now I am the master.

[@mitochondrium2648]

Lol

[@TomJerry12933]

I like that this (probably) unintended mechanic means that you have the option to "overload" a onager so that it launchs a "extra heavy" attack at the cost of rendering the onager useless.

[@ZeroEmpires]

Been binge watching these videos lately- keep it up! They are awesome

[@codename_ema]

The fact that you made the Onagers have a camp at the beginning made me laugh

[@T-West]

They needed a secret base where they could hide from all of the Crossbows! ;)

[@theowlogram888]

4:44 So that's why Warwolf makes trebs 100% accurate, otherwise their splash damage would barely work?

[@T-West]

Correct!

[@DiscipleKnight1010]

I wish it didn't give accuracy though. Imagine having a group of treb firing at one enemy. If their shots scatter then the blast radius would be greater

[@carlpult5235]

Waiiiiiiit, this means the Hun bonus DOES actually do something!? :O

[@T-West]

@@carlpult5235 Trebs don't have a Blast Radius by default. Warwolf gives both 100% accuracy and a small Blast Radius. The Hun bonus doesn't change the Blast Radius, (i.e. the Blast Radius remains 0), it just increases the accuracy.

[@carlpult5235]

@@T-West so it's still bad? ow well

[@jprp12]

T-West of the law!! Loving this kind of videos, keep it up!

[@dallumm]

T-West: here’s how to be a pacifist Also T-West: here’s how to demolish enemy crossbows with your siege

[@T-West]

If we converted the Crossbows, they would just start shooting at enemy units before we had a chance to put them on No Attack Stance, anyway. ;)

[@burningsinner1132]

@@T-West So, it's a pacifist problem with camel dillema fused together? Is it moral to intervene to succeed in securing enemy's inner pacifism by killing them before they get chance to be corrupted?

[@IschmarVI]

sometims the only answer is "hurl a bunch of rocks at them"

[@arturotorija8771]

Came for the mangonel, stayed for the maths class

[@tomc.5704]

Came for the maths class, stayed for the stormtrooper subplot

[@IschmarVI]

came for seeing mangonels destroy archers, stayed for the paladin with the 10 tile area-of-effect attack

[@sudlord1093]

I’m slowly becoming better at this game but remember SLOWLY.

[@kmuralikrishna1998]

I'm slowly becoming slow at the game, but remember SLOWLY.

[@danielmcgann86]

And then you’ll quickly get worse before you get better again!!!

[@HandleDisliker]

I think I'm getting better even though I haven't been able to play the game in years lol

[@quyenmojos9004]

You're right I became better at the game, but only at the slowest speed.

[@sudlord1093]

Hey at least we learned something

[@_ten]

Spirit of the Law: FINALLY! A worthy ~adversary~ companion!

[@HolyShitNew]

T-West: you know im something of a spirit of the law myself amazing videos btw

[@mustafaoliwy282]

The last scene should have had comparison between deleting and not deleting as a real game play example. Good video, thank you.

[@hartmann4710]

I have a very VERY broad knowledge of this game, from knowing every civs bonuses and important techs to some of the wildest unit matchups and oddities within the games behaviour And yet theres still things like this that ive never heard anyone question till today Amazing video really. This game never fails to amaze, even if the source of amazement is what feels like spaghetti code 1111

[@Combinebobnt]

Probably the best presentation of testing documentation on this aoe2 'feature'

[@mafiousbj]

Damn Spirit of the Law might have some competition on the "disecting gane mechanics" front. And both of you have amazing production values! This is not a quickly put together video and it really shows the time you spent testing and editing it!

[@alexanderstoyanov7464]

If only maths lectures at unis could be as good :)

[@parthn-musicforwork4789]

they’re a total waste of time (the uni ones)

[@dragovern]

You don't feel they are like this because you don't have the equivalent to play aoe for hours. (i.e. a hook to be interested)

[@christopherg2347]

5:50 It is unlikely that the dead unit has 100% accuracy. It is more likely that the projectile had no unit to extract the actual accuracy from, so it fell back to the default 100%. If the launching unit is killed, they have to use *something* else for the calculations. Even if the results are different in some rare cases. The only alternatives are no damage or a game crash. Neither case seem very good.

[@rodrimelendez6911]

Actually they could just extract the actual accuracy from the launching unit, independently if it is dead or not 👀. I guess it's a matter of coding, but it makes it way funnier

[@krisztiannagy4953]

@@rodrimelendez6911 I think the projectile only stores a pointer to the launching unit and the launching unit's object is deleted when it is killed. So there is no object to get the necessary information from. They could have just added the needed info to the projectile when it is created but where's the fun in that? :D

[@christopherg2347]

@@krisztiannagy4953 I think a early design was to have relics be carried around to provide AoE buffs. Propably including accuracy. To allow for that, they had to do it this way. It is technical debt.

[@john_doe_trainee]

Was planning to make a post on the topic. I used outposts and modified Mango blast radius to reach the same conclusion (no damage drop off if < 50% of blast radius; else: linear drop off). Abandoned the efforts after realization that I suck at gradient chart drawing. Thankfully, don't have to do it anymore. Also: 2:10 - extra projectiles do deal 1 damage to the intended target if target firing (even if the Mango is deleted), but have no damage if attack ground is used. Don't think it's relevant in a mid-high level play, though.

[@T-West]

Oh, that's a good point about the extra projectiles, they do indeed do more damage to the targeted unit (even with 0 attack).

[@memo6007]

I love the use of LaTeX! great explanation and video:)

[@T-West]

My favorite part is the 3d surface I made in tikz for the thumbnail.

[@memo6007]

@@T-West ohh, that's impressive! For me, using tikz is always a nightmare :D

[@kartiksaraf4676]

Whoa, not the video I wanted but the video I needed. Also I assume the same is true if instead of delete, the crossbows that are being shot kill the mangonel. Ironically, they seal their own fate

[@timchanux]

Spirit of the Law: "Finally a worthy opponent"

[@W0lf7133]

The subscriber count will break 10k any day now! Keep up the great work! (This video was fantastic, as well!)

[@rangeyraghav130]

0:39 When I go back to my base for 1 second

[@adnanhuzaifa6391]

XD LOL

[@codefeenix]

You could find the values of the relevant attributes in memory, then watch what changes when the unit is deleted. The values could be found with events that modify the values multiple times until you find the memory location.

[@nituldeshptha99]

Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds was such an underrated version of the Age of Empires 2 I honestly wish they had made some updates to that like they did for Definitive edition. Most of the different factions have almost all the same units with the same stats, so it's not much fun playing competitively, or at all.

[@arshiaaghaei]

Also the GOG version is bugged AF. I wish we got a proper remaster

[@MrAbgeBrandt]

Check out the mod "Expanding Fronts"

[@Progeusz]

I still don't get WHY it happens. You described the end result (inner half full damage, outside half linearly lowering) but why does deleting the mangonel change it? Still, this is revolutionary finding, so THANK YOU for the video. All the story around it was super entertaining too 11 great vid, please keep making more.

[@tomaszsmol3920]

Orange is the ne... oh wait T-West is the new Spirit

[@moatezmoussi9751]

As a fellow developer , i salute you for your passion to discover the details of the game from within

[@d4L66]

I found this channel recently and WOW I’m loving this content... keep it up!

[@tw289]

Somewhere after this video Spirit of the Law: *I felt a great disturbance in the Force*

[@pinguin22100]

Teacher: dont worry, the test isnt that hard The test:

[@tunch90]

That paladin is an anime hero

[@OlrikMeister]

Only after 3 minutes i realised i wasn't watching spirit of the law. This is some great content keep it up :D

[@daarom3472]

In other words, by deleting the object that fired you create a quantum uncertainty that leads to damage on all targets.

[@dreamsteraoe7596]

Wow! This is a great piece of information. Thank you for sharing this.

[@KroM234]

Spirit of the Law watching the video: "That's mah boy..."

[@lnrkr]

This channel is a like an SOTL of an alternative universe.

[@T-West]

But first we need to talk about parallel universes...

[@POTUSenclave]

Underrated channel!

[@yohanbeck8172]

I saw that Plume bababoom in heras channel. Was pretty sick, the chat lost it :D

[@LifeLikeSage]

I think I may know why this is happening. The projectiles are likely coded to call upon who launched them for data regarding the damage and radius as well as accuracy. Deleting the launcher of the projectile means that the projectile dealing damage no longer has a launcher to call upon to get its data, and therefore must fall back on some kind of default value.

[@astrid2432]

the crossbowman: I'm so good, I dodged the blast area of a trebuchet, even it hits my neibhor

[@Mkln8]

sorry but i still can't seem to understand what exactly makes the damage increase. Is it that the deleted mangonels main projectile becomes a unit without range similar to the paladin ant it deal it's damage without the tapering effect and and the secondary projectiles are the ones that give the taper to the outer edges? I would imagine that is not the case because you showed at the 2:00 mark that the secondary ones do not make a difference. So i would really be grateful if you could help me out here, thanks. :)

[@T-West]

Since the secondary projectiles have 0 attack, they're just for show to make the Mangonel shot look more impressive. It's only the primary projectile that does damage. Not exactly sure why deleting the Mangonel changes the tapering effect, but that's what comes out through testing the mechanic.

[@Mkln8]

@@T-West So we're still in the dark on why exactly it tapers in that specific kind of way from what i'm understanding. But even then video is still informative and super great, thanks for the reply and keep up the fantastic work. :D

[@Tocaraca]

T-West This is not true. The secondary projectiles each deal 1 damage. A unit’s minimum damage is always 1, even if its base damage is 0. This is why a Mangonel will one-shot a loomed Villager; since it’s is a unit with 40 HP and 1 melee armor, theoretically it should take 39 damage from a Mangonel and survive on 1 HP. But the extra projectiles deal 1 damage each, and the majority of the time, at least one of them hits the villager, which kills it. That doesn’t apply to Bombard Cannons since they only have one projectile, so they deal 39 damage to a vill. Which is annoying lmao

[@T-West]

@@Tocaraca Oh, this depends on if the attack is a direct right click or an attack ground. They do 0 damage on an attack ground.

[@mysteriousshadow395]

@@T-West I think I'll just play the game and not worry about all that

[@Hopesedge]

I'll propose a theory as to why it tapers off more for the mangonel than it does for the projectile alone, not sure if it can be tested but this is what I'm guessing is going on: When the Mangonel dies the projectile defaults to it's own internal damage calculations, this calculation hasn't been updated to match the mangonels over the years, so as the mangonel has been patched to be more balanced (i.e lower splash) the projectile's internal calculations are what the original mangonel calculations were (bigger splash with less tapering off).

[@Alavesinpoika]

Another great video, love what you're doing

[@eduardovera8162]

Good, I knew this trick but never new how or why it worked as it does. Thanks!

[@kirodragon12]

Bravo, I didn't know cataphracts had splash melee damage Amazing video as always

[@Tudsamfa]

When I first read logistica's text "Cataphracts cause trample damage", I tried to damage farms by tasking them up and down. Didn't work, had to look up, thats when I read about that splash damage.

[@ns-islandsroblox]

Me too 11

[@wisnoskij]

This video does not actually explain what is going on. The ending seems to conclude that deleting a ranged unit with a blast radius causes them to act like nothing else in the game. Which seems weird, like this behavior must of been coded, somewhere. This blast damage is some sort of default behaviour.

[@bravomike4734]

From a comment above. "Beast 9 months ago I think this is the behavior for units like Demolition Ships and Petards, they delete themselves when attacking so, when the Mangonel isn't there anymore the game things it is a Petard and applies the Petard rules of damage." But its still all conjecture.

[@fgriane4589]

thank you. before i watch this i had 1 wins and 10 loses. after this video it is 11 loses now.

[@fgriane4589]

i am 600-700 elo right now. is there anyone like me or i am the only one :(

[@visaug3680]

I love the way you start the video

[@VincePlaysChess]

amazing work. Love these videos

[@hylianrapsody7607]

You left me in awe with the accuracy part, I was definetly not expecting such a behaviour. As a fellow Ethiopian lover, I love more and more my torsion engine tech :D GREAT VIDEO, please keep up the good work I love it.

[@BlackOps78321]

It's intended imo, to give a 'last shot' that has 100% chance when the siege or unit dies.

[@ShivaramakrishnaReddy]

What if T90 and Spirit of the law were mixed together? I introduce you, T-West.

[@philippeporto5893]

The time is ripe for a crossover video between you and Spirit of the Law

[@shinkiro403]

Aaaand here's another tease for me that makes me want a DE of SW: Galactic Battlegrounds (yeah, even with Empire at War out there: both are good but they provide different experiences). Before becoming an at least knowledgable (not necessarily good tho) player of AoE2 DE it wasn't a problem, but now that I learned the hotkeys and having felt the QoL changes between Age of Kings and DE it's too difficult to return to previous games, SW: GB included. Oh well, I guess with EA around a man can (literally) only dream...

[@superchroma]

It'd be great. Definitely seems to be a kind of cult favorite though. A lot of people are asking for an AoM DE as far as I can see so far.

[@shinkiro403]

@@superchroma well that can actually happen since AoM is a Microsoft property afair so no special permissions are needed, it's not the same with SWGB tho. Also, GB really looks to me kinda overlooked so we won't see much more than mods on it, especially with Empire at War around (I could be wrong ofc)

[@superchroma]

@@shinkiro403 sure, I get it. I'd like to see all these titles get done eventually. Hopefully it's easy as the hard work has been done on the engine and dev tools.

[@shinkiro403]

@@superchroma hopefully, yet I don't think so, AoE2 DE engine would need to be different from the AoM DE one, so unless the latter uses the same one as AoE3 DE I think it will get some time still to get it done. As for SW GB I've no hope in it, it wasn't a Microsoft title to begin with and the rights are for EA only, and we know the only way to make em do something is with the promise of a lot of cash, which SW GB can't in any way raise. I don't want to be a doomer but this seems the course we are on... x'(

[@burningsinner1132]

Yeah, I'd love myself some Saracenic Hun Federation fun as well, but Franchise itself is in the hands of Disney now. And for moguls like this, longterm fun of the game is something they can't allow, since it hurts their sales of other products and merch.

[@santiagoberges5643]

SpiriT of the West

[@amyasseektruth8246]

Liam Beaumont mentioned your video with a link.... watched - liked and subscribed

[@nvmtt]

Spirit of the law: New Challenger approaches

[@bartoszmichalik7149]

Very nicely analised.

[@Taker02]

This is like watching Spirit of the Law's smartest cousin

[@EMDakka]

[@henke37]

So, the damage is linear outside of a central location. I have a partial theory of what could be going on. The game computes the damage multiplier as normal when it damages the units. But for unknown reasons the damage is higher than the max damage for the inner units. As such, the damage gets capped to the max damage.

[@colormetwisted]

Finally a spirit of the west upload

[@robinhoodlumberjack1748]

TWEST is best You will make players happy and devs angry :D thanks

[@PianoDome]

Finally mathematics coming into some good use. Jokes aside, very great video, well-explained and chill to watch. Do you know if this is intended or it is just some odds coming from how the game mechanics are implemented? I would assume second.

[@T-West]

I doubt it's intended.

[@StinkySkunk100]

Challenger to spirit of the law?

[@Robert-vk7je]

The mangonel shoots so hard, it breaks.

[@giovannialonso3724]

That was a painful sight for plumed archers

[@djfatoush]

Spirit of the Law collab when?

[@sirvolders]

"It's not a bug, it's a feature"

[@MadArcherJr]

Yay we have another maths AoE/Mechanic Channel.

[@William-B]

Does packing your trebuchet have the same affect as deleting it? ie. 100% accuracy?

[@T-West]

Not sure. I checked the game data real quick, and a packed Treb has 92 percent accuracy.

[@jefffinkbonner9551]

Opposite. If you pack a treb before the shot lands, it only does 1 damage. Gotta be careful with Japanese trebs with Kataparuto!

[@T-West]

@@jefffinkbonner9551 I think that was changed in DE.

[@ariel222100]

Less words, more dead crossbowman!

[@Speak4Yourself2]

Genius. Thanks a lot!

[@KiraRiseAgainst]

T-West... My man!, good videos keep it up!... you should check the AoC proyectile behaviour i'm pretty sure they behave slightly different i'm not sure if HD is like DE or AoC in the proyectile behaviour

[@harz632]

Looks like i'm on time today.

[@IamDalv]

Awesome video

[@vicrorovic]

When you cross Gandhi and Viper, you get T-West!

[@captaintofu4926]

T-West...PhD of AoE Science

[@ArtyMcLabin]

probably it's just: if(isExisting(owner)){ applyRadialDamage(owner->damage); }else{ apply......ge(100); //hardcoded default to avoid null reference crash }

[@Jacks_Suffocating_Nihilism]

It would be worth comparing to the non-projectile "exploding" units which deal damage only after death. I'd bet that's where you'll find the default case.

[@IschmarVI]

but then again, they must have written the damage value into the projectiles ... so I don't get why they don't just write everything else into the projectiles as well

[@daniielah.7569]

Are these Game Analysis teal bg videos the equivalent of decino's yellow bg videos? ;P Anyways, great video, is it still not known why does it exactly change the way the blast works like that?

[@T-West]

Not precisely I'd say. There is hard-coded behavior for various "tapers"---the linear and constant ones are 2 examples. Cataphracts have a constant 5 damage regardless of their attack, War Elephants have a constant 50% of their attack, etc. There is some limited ability to change which tapers are assigned to which units through data modding, but others are hard-coded to behave the way they do for certain unit IDs. I don't think there's a way to assign this particular 2-stage taper to any units, other than after they're dead. Perhaps it's just the default for "dead" units.

[@Nerewar90]

Spirit of the T-West

[@sergeantmemeswaraj7048]

New spirit of the law. No. of Sotl go Stonks

[@orton797]

thank you spirit :D

[@mdmishfaqahmed8356]

1:47 "We can ignore that since nothing is garrisoned inside a mangonel" .. wonder if a time comes when u can garrison things inside a mangonel.

[@Blazieth]

Now that the question of "What is happening" has been answered, I have a new question. *WHY* does this happen?

[@IschmarVI]

because aoe2 is as much of a spaghetti memefest as league of legends

[@DTMugetsu]

Its not a bug. Its a feature

[@anttitheinternetguy3213]

I thought i was about to watch a video about an interesting bug in aoe2, ended up being tricked into a Math class

[@IschmarVI]

This also happens when you destroy an enemy onager while its shot is mid-air. I once lost > 40 rattan archers to a single SO shot this way ... good ol' times >_>

[@T-West]

Yup! Destroying the Onager is the same as having it be deleted. As long as it's no longer alive, the same mechanic applies.

[@IschmarVI]

I like how this is actually something, an archer player needs to keep in mind. Sometimes it is better to wait a moment before destroying the enemy mangonel/onager or otherwise, bad, bad things might happen (insert Hera vs. Sora Kuma reference here)

[@ironyconfident]

Nice! Thank you

[@ricardozatarain5769]

These type of videos and pacifist videos are great. Keep up the amazing work.

[@GamerGuy249]

I'm just happy to see Galactic Battlegrounds.

[@T-West]

I'm happy about that too.

[@A.Martinez152]

Have you ever heared of the "Spirit of the Law" Inicitave?

[@yrrgallerte354]

4:40 This mechanic just sounds so wrong to me :-D

[@satyakisil9711]

Well, the accuracy is just the probability of units doing damage. The probability of shots landing on their targets is just a sub-feature.

[@stormrunner4081]

Formula I didn’t know you had sprit guest star

[@Jay19Jay93]

Spirit of the West

[@Tonceitoys]

Would a shot with a deleted mangonel/onager with Torsion Engines be more deathly?

[@T-West]

I think it would maintain the increased Blast Radius of Torsion Engines.