How the Konnik Stands Back Up | An Introduction to Dead Units

[@metalproofed3089]

can we quickly mention that in DE the dead units are just sinking into the ground, while in any older version the dead are actually decaying. my 10yo self won´t forget anytime soon that the once mighty warriors are reduceed to sunbleeched bones within a few ingame years.

[@dilberfard7173]

Yeah I wish they made them actually decay in de

[@fredhunter2645]

Yeah I miss that tbh

[@JamesFodor]

I really hope they fix this sometime, its one of my biggest complains about DE

[@xotl2780]

Original Age of Empires had the best dead bodies.

[@nikopaseman7147]

Since games released in China can't have skeletons in them, I have noticed more games either without them, or made to make them easier to remove for Chinese versions. Could be what happened here.

[@Aeroxima]

I have gained random knowledge.

[@T-West]

The best kind of knowledge!

[@ThePoeticPariah]

I want a reverse Konnik. Where when you kill a Konnik, it falls down and only the horse stands back up.

[@HolyKhaaaaan]

I want a horse that dies and picks up a dismounted konnik.

[@grindelwald8651]

I want a dismounted Konnik who sits on a horse after he dies

[@du1987de]

I want a horse that rides a dismounted Konnik when it dies.

[@tvremote9394]

@@du1987de sounds nasty, but i won't kink shame

[@du1987de]

@@tvremote9394 Ha!

[@oom-3262]

I really don't like how in definitive edition corspes just dissapear. In og age of empires and in HD, corpses and skeletons litering the landscape was a sight to behold after a battle. I really miss that.

[@RennieAsh]

An easy mood would change that animation time so they last longer. But I’d prefer the original style of decay over “sinking into quicksand” that were have here

[@doccholo905]

Agreed, be cool if they also let blood "dry out" with the decay.

[@CrnaStrela]

seems they doing that to keep clutters out so our game will stay at smooth fps

[@justlikeit417]

"F" R.I.P all the archer who sacrificed their life for this video

[@T-West]

F

[@mafiousbj]

Lord Daut revels in their sacrifice F

[@StarStar-wx4tf]

F

[@YamiNoAruji]

F

[@justlikeit417]

@Sebastien BOHAN F for the Horse too, we don't discriminate

[@DudeWatIsThis]

2:51 Game developer here. We do this because it uses less resources AND the code is cleaner. An "alive" unit has a shitload of parameters, a complex script, pathing, etc. A dead unit has a simple decaying script, at most.

[@IschmarVI]

considering, that the game is relatively old, this is probably the reason, yes. A "dedicated" dead unit needs less parameters than a shared dead/alive unit. While it can cause some side effects (like losing when there is konniks left that have yet to stand up), it does have a lot of advantages. Also, back in the day, there were no units like the konnik.

[@DudeWatIsThis]

@@IschmarVI Even in newer games, this is done regularly. A living entity and a dead entity are so distinct that it doesn't make sense to have all of their code together in a single package of code. They share nothing, apart from their exterior coat of paint. So usually, one immediately swaps the living unit for a dead unit in its exact place of death. Otherwise, the code would be very dirty

[@heiljandal1329]

The fact that T-West can take such a miniscule and inconsequential topic as this and make it entertaining is simply amazing, honestly the most underrated AoE channel imo.

[@ananass8030]

It honestly is

[@IschmarVI]

for sure

[@jahrazzjahrazz8858]

Another big benefit of changing the actual unit when it becomes a corpse is you probably can tell the engine directly that it doesnt need to update position every frame and compute collisions etc

[@isaweesaw]

I love how the creators continue finding new, creative ways to make units different Even more impressive how you figured out how hard it all is D:

[@W0lf7133]

My favorite Konnik moment was when a lone enemy monk converted my lone Konnik with the Heresy Upgrade. He promptly got up, and avenged his departed horse.

[@nineonine9082]

That is so awesome!

[@RennieAsh]

So it’s like in original AoE when the priests would try and convert wild animals lol

[@W0lf7133]

@Diego Barboza That was fantastically written, Good Sir

[@maxmustsleep]

As developer myself it's also just much easier to work with if you destroy a unit that accounts for score, population space and control groups, thus removing them quickly from any lists or arrays and then spawning a new dummy unit for purely visual decay. Amazing job figuring all this out. I really like your deep dives! Great stuff :)

[@MrAbgeBrandt]

The dead units also contain a lot less data and have less intensive simulation, so it also brings a lot of optimisation with it.

[@Jaakington]

I too come from a village where we annually sacrificed young archers for Lord DauT

[@maxmustsleep]

A pacifist village I see, since sacrificing your own doesn't count as killing

[@hb.raafay]

An Ikonnik death animation

[@theowlogram888]

0:55 Is Daut an Aztec god?

[@T-West]

He's a god for all 35 civilizations.

[@laurivaisanen6918]

Not much is known about our Lord and Saviour Daut. Earliest reliable sources date him as early as 9000BC where there are cave paintings and other religious relics found around the globe. There are findings around the history regularly coming up at every age. He is indeed God of all 35 civilizations (and more if there will be more). What is certain that he is all powerful but ultimately merciful deity which can be seen as a form in "Daut castle" which is thought to me lesson for his followers that you should show mercy even for your enemy.

[@daa3930]

You missed a fine oppoturnity to show what happens if you remove ""Spawn dismounted konnik" trigger from the original unit.

[@theplanetmercury7487]

What happens?

[@daa3930]

@@theplanetmercury7487 What happens is that the Konnik's death animation shows the Dismounted Konnik to get back up, but because there's no new unit to spawn, the rider just vanihses in the thin air after the animation is completed. I call it "The great Bulgarian vanishing act".

[@RennieAsh]

Well at least you got to see the horse vanishing after the rider gets back up 0:36

[@FolgoreCZ]

"And that's when the dead men are marching Again!"

[@sniperloic2904]

Osowiec then and again Attack of the dead, hundred men Facing the lead once again Hundred men , Charge again, Die again ! (Yea could not resist)

[@ImmacHn]

5:31, I'd say it looks like the horse is the one bleeding, it just took it some time to start bleeding.

[@Tudsamfa]

1:44 Ok, I now know what i need to edit to make a death in a scenario go into slow motion. I feel like the players will realize the impact of this Death to the story if the sea Joan D'arc die for... 2 hours?

[@T-West]

2 years?

[@burningsinner1132]

It won't work without 2 hour long autotuned scream. This way you learn not only how hard it is to witness the death of your beloved hero, but also go through the tragic loss of hero's sanctity, as you no longer have ability to take one seriously.

[@Jixxor]

I never questioned this, yet I am glad I now know how its done. Great vid.

[@TovKafur]

There was a nice map which abused this trick, namely Corruption of the Realm. Vampire Cavalry had corpse as its "dead" unit, but corpse had Vampire Cavalry as "dead" unit, making them virtually immortal. Usual tactic was to put these dudes on raid in enemy territory and make them auto raiding unit... but players swiftly learned how to counter this with walling corpses.

[@prathamesh5497]

dude this is so random and so nice! you're the best, T-west!

[@alexanderstoyanov7464]

Welcome to Programming basics AoE2 edition with T-West :)

[@angrycabbage1988]

Imagine if every cavalry unit could do this...

[@Yumao420]

Knights, Genitour and Cavalry archers have it easy. The UU can be done individualy (Let's count the Steepe Lancer as unique). But what about camels and light cav?

[@Snowfireblues]

@@Yumao420 Dismounted Steppe lancers are kamayuk

[@Yumao420]

@@Snowfireblues that would be soooo broken. I love it

[@manupainkiller]

In Stronghold 2 I think the cavalry units did this. Both the mount and rider had separate HP bars. You could order your cavalry to mount & dismount also at any time.

[@Yumao420]

@@manupainkiller that's Sparta, not AoE

[@mafiousbj]

I guess that with enough tinkering one could make those dead units selectable just for giggles. But i'm actually very impressed with the fact DE has 32 possible directions now. You notice there are more but i never imagined it was 4 times more!

[@15OgLoc]

Also I liked the old skeleton left behind in the old AOE II

[@tkzsfen]

The John Wick of unique units!

[@ddraganov]

I wish there is a possibility of horse living and konnik dying like 10% or so. Then some of the dismounted konniks around could mount the horse again.

[@tvremote9394]

3:25 thought that was a dead bug on my screen

[@jasv49]

AoE 1 clips always make me happy

[@T-West]

Same for me :)

[@astrid2432]

4:31 I find you can quite notice the difference between animation and real unit, when you look at it's shading when the Konnik appears as the footsoldier, his breastplate appear to get more light, as the animation still uses the horse-Konnik and there most of the breastplate get covered up with the horse body

[@LancelotOnCrack]

LOL 1:50 "Dying is but the first part of death. The second part is the actually being dead part." -- T-West 2020

[@flavvsdasilver6442]

I love that line: "Dying is but the first part of death"

[@matthew99_]

A dismounted konnik doesn't become an elite dismounted konnik if it was dismounted before the upgrade comes in. However, an elite konnik does dismount into an elite dismounted konnik.

[@_ten]

This might be an interesting insight for non-programmers: think about how when units die the developers want the corpse to stay there and decay for some time. They had to model this somehow, and they came up with the idea of units being replaced when other units when they die and after a dying animation. It's weird behavior but you have to include that logic somewhere! And what if a corpse "dies"? Then replace it with nothing. Cool. But wait, now we have a unit that separates into two! Ok we shall need another "death unit", the blood unit, and this one the initial one has to leave behind. See how the logic becomes kind of twisted to accommodate specific requirements? And this is everywhere! Simple example: how the arrows that archers fire and miss stick in the ground for some time regardless of the later position of the archer itself. They're sure to be a completely different entity! You can probably think a bit and find even weirder "edge cases" such as the Konnik's.

[@RennieAsh]

So we could make prometheuns from AoM?

[@RennieAsh]

0:34 the Konnik animation is seamless - proceeds to show it on a bridge where the dead body vanishes

[@xotl2780]

I don't remember seeing it in Definitive Edition but there was this dead monk glitch I used to see in the game. If you killed the monk, they stayed "alive" on the ground for a bit before they bled and died. I think they had to run out of faith before they turned into a corpse.

[@xotl2780]

Turns out it totally happens in Definitive Edition btw.

[@RennieAsh]

Imagine if you could go and heal them back up

[@azmhyr]

Every other cavalry unit in AOE2: horse ded I ded Konnik: Fuck dat

[@YamiNoAruji]

He sacrificed an archer to lord daut but forgot to sacrifice an almost fully built castle. As a punishment he will be cursed with the curse of Daut. Never again will he be able to get an aggresive castle up in time. F for T-West

[@mrm8896]

I like when going inside the game internal files

[@stefanandrejcik571]

Uuuuu MAN congrats on 11k sub remember when you had like 700 keep it up 💪💪💪

[@1un4cy]

As the TF2 Scout would say Hhey! Look! You shapeshifted into a dead guy!

[@shifty220]

Another great video! Keep them comin!

[@directrulefromgamerchair3947]

"Hey bro I know you're trying to do a pacifist run, it's good you just got my horse" - konniks

[@relix7373]

Konnik is a funny name for the unit. In Polish konnik would be like saying "kitty" in English.

[@miciso666]

konnik falls konnik: OH NO! konnik: stands up konnik: anyway

[@CidDamascus]

These sacrifices does please lord Daut, may castles forever remain at 95%

[@obsidian5475]

What about an elephant archer has an archer stand back up When It dies?

[@obsidian5475]

Or Bulgarians can re-mount their horses with horses from around the map(and are even stronger because revenge)

[@JudgeEomer]

You try falling off an elephant and continuing fighting.

[@RennieAsh]

Then that still only counts as one

[@ekim613]

Upon release of the Bulgarians and their Konnik unit, I was thinking about a new civ (or custom scenario) mechanic where you could breed horses and mount/dismount different infantry/archer units. This is what I wrote on SOTLs iconic Konnik vid 6 months ago: [Thoughts on being able to remount a dismounted Konnik? Garrisoning in a Krepost/Castle for x seconds and/or paying some % of the unit cost could give them their mount back. Or should they never be able to remount like as is? Also, another idea for a civ (or even just a mod) would be being able to create horses and instead of creating cavalry units you could mount swordsmen for knights, spears for lancers, archers for ca, skirms for genitours and maybe even villagers to scouts. sounds like a unique concept for the horse unit which might exist in some of the campaigns]

[@fgrcdefeatkiller7724]

Wouldn't it be cool if every mounted unit had a chance to have it's rider get back up, but the Konnik was always 100%?

[@RobotShield]

Imagine the forums complaining about balance

[@theschwabmob8363]

For years, when I was a kid I wished knight and knight equivalent heroes (even ones like El Cid & his Campeador variant) would rise back up from their horse, and fight as an infantry unit. I think in my head it was Knight -> Man-at-arms, Cavalier -> Longsword, and then obvi El Cid would go to his infantry version. I remember being jawdropped when I first head about the Konnik as it awoke childhood memories...man I need to come back to AoE2 sometime!

[@T-West]

I kinda want a horse when the rider dies and the horse lives, then you can mount another unit on the horse afterwards.

[@theschwabmob8363]

@@T-West Yoooo! That'd be cool too! I never thought of that one I don't think as a kid.

[@grindelwald8651]

T-West you really know stuff

[@Ugh718]

Nobody: Black rider at 0:29: *_YOU UNDERESTIMATE MY POWER_*

[@arshpreetsingh4511]

started learning coding a month ago, feeling good that i can relate :-)

[@bitcoinfandom]

I think the blood is from the horse. Awesome video btw!

[@pkcsgochannel5412]

Ty for this, i learned something today

[@Quinti22]

I always thought about the blood being the blood of the death horse

[@MrPathorn]

What about Ivaylo? The Only Hero who dismounts when dies?

[@T-West]

Same thing with the dead unit should apply to him as well.

[@15OgLoc]

He got back up and pwn him, Giant Dad Style.

[@TheCandaceChronicles]

Dude, from where do you collect such amazing information

[@congriofish]

This si really good for anyone in gamedev

[@pythagabc04]

will you do the relics of athlen

[@T-West]

Yes! :)

[@pythagabc04]

@@T-West the old age of empires scenarios are good

[@pythagabc04]

@@T-West thanks for all the videos an efort you put on then

[@Alkhalim]

The Blood Unit (badass name btw 11) section hass been new to me... well now I just have to figure out what to do with that knowledge... 11

[@adnanhuzaifa6391]

hey mr t west love your videos

[@xingkaizhao1508]

So, a reverse El Cid from the first Scenario? Imagine a mod with this feature...

[@silvanmoses9122]

0:01 is that sneak peak from spirit of the law’s aoe olympics ?

[@T-West]

Oh, just something I threw together. Was thinking of the tournament in Ulio when I made it, with the King watching and the "stable lad" Woad Raider on the side.

[@aoe2and3fan]

Just... waouh. °_° What a work! Both from the devs... and you! :-D

[@rmarks-it3qs]

great content man! thank you ( and Thx DE)

[@santiagoberges5643]

Next video: How does keshik generate gold. Spoiler: it has a feitoria gold generation task when its attacking specific kind of units. I'm currently working on a data set and turned keshik into a building. What happened is that each keshik started to generate like 500 gold/minute since all the tasks bugged and were being triggered passively as if they were feitorias.

[@T-West]

Next question: does that building continue to generate 500 gold/minute if a Scout kidnaps it?

[@santiagoberges5643]

@@T-West Does it deal area damage if you delete it before its missiles land?

[@maxmustsleep]

@@T-West omg yes! This calls for a deep dive 😂

[@T-West]

@@santiagoberges5643 Only if you garrison the missiles in a Ram and transport them across the map before they land.

[@kizmetmars]

That's a beautiful scene at 0:40. Did you make that map?

[@T-West]

Yup, I looked at some of the Bulgarian campaign's scenarios to see what types of scenery was used in them, then came up with a scene for that bit of the video.

[@kizmetmars]

@@T-West That's awesome. I've noticed a lot scenes like the fight on a bridge, they're really cool and add a lot to the story telling.

[@Saiscania]

Now I wonder if the death animations are the same outside of the Peaceful Pentagram of Pacifism !? Might be worth checking out!

[@0pt618]

No monk visit needed. The bleeding is from the valiant steed.

[@stoneskull1673]

Fantastic work could you tell me how you managed to extract the og aoe2 unit frames? might sound morbid but I always wanted to see up close the units decaying frames till it turns a skeleton The general model progression is very fascinating

[@T-West]

You can use Turtle Pack to open the graphics files for the original game. The graphics are in the Data/graphics.drs file. Extra the SLP files from the DRS, then you can view them in Turtle Pack. Turtle Pack: aok.heavengames.com/blacksmith/showfile.php?fileid=11349

[@stoneskull1673]

@@T-West excellent thank you friend

[@knightofsvea604]

Dont know how i got here, but Im hooked 🙂 joind at 12000 subs

[@FFFFFFF-FFFFFFFUUUUCCCC]

I miss the rotting bodies and skeletons. In the remastered versions dead units just magically "sink" into the ground.

[@NotNobleWolf]

So are you saying the horse is just sleeping while he gets up and pours a pool of blood out

[@maxmustsleep]

Of course! it stays on the ground playing dead and then gets up and leaves once it's off screen. No horses were harmed in the making of this video it's all just good special effects

[@chisaba1520]

Konnik Mechanics must had adopt in all cavalry, camel and elephanht units.

[@vivekantoni2134]

Hey man have you observed that when unit decay there are no skeletons like old games when they decay there skeletons remain.

[@T-West]

I've seen people mention it a lot, but it's not something that stands out to me while playing. There's are lots of other graphical changes that feel to me like they don't fit the style of Aoe2 though.

[@vivekantoni2134]

@@T-West But I hope this skeleton features in AOE4 but maybe unlikely.

[@Speak4Yourself2]

Thanks a lot!

[@MrAbgeBrandt]

About why dead units are seperate: The dead units contain a lot less data and have less intensive simulation, so it also brings a lot of optimisation with it.

[@luizsahetapy4431]

How to keep the corpses in the battlefield? It would be cool to see the troops walking through a battlefield full of corpses

[@T-West]

Just give the decay animations and units really long timers and resource values.

[@luizsahetapy4431]

Thanks dude

[@redisulejmani9925]

spirit of the law sounding a little different this time

[@dragonlord4643]

@T-West i wonder if you manage to win the Burmese campaign without losing a Single Unit :3 like you did for Star Craft 2 :P

[@T-West]

I've never played SC2...

[@dragonlord4643]

@@T-West oops true story, i miss changed you with someone :D my bad. But still like the "can you beat the campaign without killing a single unit" but now without losing a single one. I would love to see if somebody would be able to do so :*

[@RomaInvictusSPQR]

cool stuff

[@guwustabo]

The konnik of Schrödinger

[@thewanderingdoomed4883]

What about making when paladin die they Will rise again as champion? Is that possible?

[@T-West]

That could be done, yes.

[@thewanderingdoomed4883]

@@T-West now that Will be interesting lol

[@ShivamSingh-dk2pu]

Your obsession with dead things makes me wanna have a look into your basement. 😂😂

[@gonsalomon]

T-West of the Law.

[@dreammfyre]

Isn’t the blood from the horse?

[@francescodamato3345]

Could it be possible to make the units revive like in a zombie mode?

[@francescodamato3345]

i mean in the editor to make some scenario like GoT

[@T-West]

@@francescodamato3345 I think it's possible, there is a scenario "Blood for the Serpent God", where whenever you kill an enemy unit, it creates a Villager that then turns to the player's side as a "captive".

[@francescodamato3345]

@@T-West This seems really great! Thank you, I will investigate that

[@francescodamato3345]

Ok, I checked those triggers and I have to say your help to find those was crucial man. Thank you so much i tested them and they work very well, I'm already working on the GoT scenario I hope to have it soon, THANK YOU AGAIN!

[@T-West]

@@francescodamato3345 Glad it works :)

[@kampfer91]

So dead unit have storage resources , but why we can't gather meat from them ?

[@T-West]

You can if they store Food.

[@fgrcdefeatkiller7724]

Whoa the Konnik with no horse

[@r_rajkarnikar]

I didn't know I wanted to know this. 😅

[@SingaporeLyfe]

Draw a pentagram on the ground. Check. Place torches in a circle. Check. Place relics at each corner of the pentagram. Check. Pacifism mode activated.

[@PabloEscobar-vh6jq]

All hail lord Daut

[@generalhyde007]

Hey T-West! When is your next Pacifist video coming out? I would love Attila next! Thanks for the heart!

[@T-West]

I'm working on Battles of the Conqueors. Hopefully I finish it "soon".

[@generalhyde007]

T-West Sweet! Awesome!!!!

[@sudlord1093]

With this new knowledge I will rule the... uhhh never mind.

[@nnelg8139]

To mod in a reverse konnik change the dead unit to horse and blood unit to dismounted konnik corpse

[@MrMagicMelone]

Why do you think the Konnik as a cavalry unit is one with the horse? When the unit gets killed my imagination tells me, that it was the horse that got killed, that's why the Konnik can still stand up and fight on. So when the cavalry unit gets killed, the blood that is spilled after the death animation is actually the blood of the dead horse. Now why can we see the blood only at the end of the animation? Of course the horse has beed gravely wounded so it died, but it fell onto its wounds. So first the blood accumulates under its corpse and it needs time to flow until the spectator can see it.

[@DestripaTutoriales]

Información crusiosa sobre estre gran clasico.

[@POTUSenclave]

Peace Is always an option.