The power of advancing 1 villager later

In this video we'll investigate the economic benefit to going up 1 villager later in the dark age, and then I'll chat with expert player Hera to get his thoughts on how it applies to high level games.
Hera's KZbin: / @heraageofempires2
Hera's Twitch: / hera
Patreon: / spiritofthelaw
Full intro song: • Spirit of the Law Chan...
Background music from Epidemic Sound: www.epidemicsound.com
Game: Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition, with Forgotten Empires, African Kingdoms, Rise the Rajas, and Last Khans expansions

[@Weldedhodag]

'Thats not even enough to build a single farm' Teutons: *Laugh in 36 wood farms*

[@sushantsardeshpande9484]

You might be on to something...

[@Krisstoff001]

Based teutonic farmers

[@madil2259]

Spoken like a true Teutonic Knight.

[@CptManboobs]

New Teuton Feudal Boom strat. But can we justify going scouts?

[@jurajoravcok5876]

Viper would have been awesome for this video Spirit: Asks anything. Viper: It depends.

[@satyakisil9711]

Viper is the Jordan Peterson of Aoe.

[@shaifuseth5566]

Thats sooo true

[@Alche_mist]

Everything depends... yes. That's (a significant part of) why he's (considered) the best.

[@valar245]

i agree @Alchemist. Viper is natural, never does math porn and he just adapts to the situation..

[@karma6746]

Yeah he plays more by instinct than planning I guess. That's why not all experts make good coaches. Such people are so damn good at the game that it comes naturally to them and they are simply unable to come up with a 'formula' that others can also apply.

[@sandrotan]

It is not that I don't want to progress faster. It is that I just don't have enough resources as a result of bad use of villager time

[@boatadd3397]

Your new profile pic caught me off guard for a second.

[@waaedalord6474]

Me 2

[@skumfisken]

Thats a shame, kinda really liked the old pic

[@prankstereddy]

Now that you mentioned it it don't even remember the previous profile pic.

[@eighty2018]

Search Spirit of the Law on Google and you'll see it, it was a red ninja.

[@salildeshpande7]

@@prankstereddy it was a samurai? unsheathing his sword in a red overall

[@Jaakington]

Damn Spirit this is nice. You cover a topic with your math and then get an opinion outside the math from a pro. Your content was top tier before, but now this ain't even an inch short from a perfect. Keep up with your stuff bro 🤘🏻 Your videos have inspired people for years and quality just keeps getting better. Greetings from Suomi 🇫🇮

[@valar245]

OMG!! Intro!! I haven't felt this much relieved for a long time.

[@JayVal90]

I felt like I was going to trip the first time I heard his shortened intro.

[@javsjavs8659]

Same!

[@Dinofaustivoro]

Is this the best intro music of all KZbin? Maybe competes with the ending music from Lindybeige

[@mister420blazeit2]

Uh he's been using this new intro for a while now. Where were you?

[@shafoz]

MBL be like: mongols advance even faster when you lure 4 boars

[@Orkimtor]

I believe I saw a video on T90s channel where some high level player was mongols on black forest and had quite a couple of extra boars and had an insanely early castle age

[@dislexyc]

@@Orkimtor and lost iirc

[@snotie007bits6]

That was MBL

[@satyakisil9711]

11 I get that.

[@arthurkraft5610]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/nH6vaH5-nK-Xqsk

[@onetrucksizedsalmon2962]

Me with a solid 30 minute feudal time: I am 4 parallel universes ahead of you

[@kouron]

Depends on the amount of A-presses.

[@downsundrome1645]

What's fuedal age ... I get destroyed by moderate too early

[@mysteriousstranger9496]

@@kouronA presses are irrelevant when you QPU boom.

[@iceefrags8770]

17:23 Nili: "get a life" - after hera tries to trap the drush. Touche

[@federicoparada8382]

1111

[@eccentrichorse11]

Spirit: You can either advance later and have 1 more villager or you can advance faster but with 1 less vill. Me: How about both?

[@mubashirulmoula1798]

Malay is right there for you.

[@pronoob2439]

60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes

[@nate-lin]

Then play chinese, you got 2 more vill at the end of dark age if you never idle your tc and will have same or faster up time.

[@Dueilangoisseus]

Advance later *and* with one less villager? Easy

[@carlosmedina8747]

@@Dueilangoisseus haha very common if you got housed

[@kyleshores432]

Should do an interview on it with MBL, and ask how much getting housed constantly effects going up.....

[@dogeofgreatness2222]

I dont think spirit would feel comfortable asking that

[@tomassmith2088]

Should have brought him on for the "are houses worth it" Video

[@blacklight4720]

I delay feudal so I can have more villagers idle.

[@nickh-i9846]

Hera & Spirit! Team Canada / Dream Canada! Great vid as usual. I have been starting to practice build orders, 21 pop scout rush into fast castle knight production is my favorite, and all of this theory crafting is really insightful. Thanks guys!

[@jacquesmcdermott2977]

This is a nice video but sadly not really relevant for novices, who make up the large majority of Spirit's viewers. For us, its less of a tradeoff of 1 extra vil, but more tradeoffs like "Is it worth it to idle your TC to get to Feudal age at the right time when you don't have enough food?" or "If I've lost a vil or 2 to a boar, how much should I delay to regain economy parity?". Also "At what percentage of likelihood of losing a vil to boar is it no longer worth it to lure a boar?". I have tons of dilemmas like that, but never heard a pro talk about them since they just don't encounter those problems.

[@StahlmetallerM]

Just practice your dark age vs the AI and just instantly start over, when you lose a vil to a boar until you don't anymore. Then start playing online.

[@pepochomail8989]

Get good son!

[@Retorix303]

Make a save game right before a boar lure and just practice it between games. That really worked for me.

[@ahuzel]

"they just don't encounter those problems" Because you no longer can win a 1v1 at that point, why you want to know if it is worth to lure a boar? C'mon bro just lure it, lure it faster and better every time, this RTS genre is very unforgiving, so just work on your mechanics so you get better and improve em, get loom right before going for the boar, get house everytime you are two units below the limit, 6 villagers on sheep, scout in circles, hit the boar two times, when boar about to hit retreat behind the tc, dont send the dude to harvest resources, buiding nor drop the cargo, JUST walk behind the TC, profit. Those problems are beyond interest bro, sry.

[@suddenllybah]

.... don't idle your TC. you are giving up resources in the future while you are alrready bad for resources now. Getting fuedal with 5 villagers would not allow you to compete with someone with 18 villagers who is going go feudal in 2 minutes, and that is basically your case taken to the extreme. waiting an extra 5 seconds to click to get an extra 130+ villager seconds of work is worth it.

[@firockfinion3326]

>These guys talking about literal top tier play >Me who sucks at all things RTS: "Interesting, very interesting."

[@ananass8030]

>these guys talking about the nuances of going one vill more or less to next age >Me, (figuratively) eating glue: "Chu Ka Nu goes brrr"

[@babyyeed5674]

Nice neopets pfp

[@domc246]

me: very interesting, and how many vills lost to boar are these build orders accounting for?

[@firockfinion3326]

@@babyyeed5674 Dunno how I missed your comment before, but thanks!

[@HockeyWerewolf]

This is exactly me. I've yet to play a single multiplayer game, just me and my friends vs ai. Yet I'm still pondering over this stuff like it matters to me xD

[@capitanjack2320]

Dude, you dont know how long i have been waiting for a video like this. Its perfect!

[@mchinn8465]

Great Video! Great information! Really like the combination of you guys. Really enjoy the games you guys have been playing recently !

[@HECKproductions]

i remember when SOTL was just some small pleb on youtube and literally nobody knew about him except his own fans and now he is one of the most recognized and important aoe2 personalities especially within youtube

[@kevindorr9291]

Great video, as always. Thanks SOTL for taking the time to create such polished content. Big fan!

[@AngDavies]

10:00 never knew about that perfect sheep queuing thing, will have to give that a go, sounds awesom

[@tomassmith2088]

I feel like it still is rough, I haven't learned to trust the shift queue

[@chtyldubreux5950]

I love how your topics get more and more useful for higher levels of play while still keeping the SotL quality!

[@Erilan5]

Now this is what I would call an informative video! Some really useful questions and answers.

[@didierguengudengo2592]

0:45 HIT IT!!

[@inglorii]

Beginner players who idle their TCs in Dark Age should probably go up with less vills because they end up with a few excess resources Unless they idle their vills too

[@Aerational]

6:29 the villager that starts chopping wood perfectly syncs up with the music...

[@assassinhamza1238]

Love to see the intro back

[@reddyaquaria689]

I’ve had this question for a LOOONG time...

[@occoninebar9222]

I am wondering what I'm missing here and hope someone can clear things up for me. ~ At 5:52 in the the video, it shows two different caslte times with 25 and 27 villagers in dark age. ( kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y5ardHmEi8qAd7s ) The castle times shown for 25 and 27 villagers are 15:40 and 16:30 respectively. ~ -for a 25 vil dark age, you have to make 22 vils (550 sec), get loom (25 sec), research feudal age (130 sec), make 2 more vils (50sec), research castle age (160sec). That's a total of 915 seconds, or 15 mins and 15 seconds. The time shown in the video is 15:40, not 15:15. ~ -for a 27 vil dark age, you have to make 24 vils (600 sec), get loom (25 sec), research feudal age (130 sec), make 2 more vils (50sec), research castle age (160sec). That's a total of 965 seconds, or 16 mins and 5 seconds. The time shown in the video is 16:30, not 16:05. ~ Is there a reason why the castle times are exactly 1 villager (25sec) later than what they should be, or did we witness the rare occurrence of Spirit making a mathematical mistake?

[@SpiritOfTheLaw]

You're right. I just read the wrong cell on my spreadsheet for the 27 villager time and then subtracted 50 seconds for the other. It should be 15:15 and 16:05, as you say. Good catch.

[@tobiaszwojnar1465]

Great interview style

[@pedroceledoniorinconsanchez]

Gigantic trees D: Nice video Spirit and Hera! So useful for everyone. Keep making good content man c:

[@Callofmuts]

The old intro!!!!

[@HolyShitNew]

i love content from you and hera combined

[@vincentbeaulieu933]

A tutorial on playing against the AI for beginners/casuals would be awesome, as the game is very different when you play offline! I know I could learn a thing or two to optimise anyways. Early rushes for example are not something I go to often but the HD AI does rush you early game sometimes.

[@TheBornageFobbie]

Full intro Pog

[@shaifuseth5566]

Thanks, I can literally feel the knowledge

[@AgeArena]

Great video! Maybe game sound during the interview would be nice

[@UnfamiliarPlace]

Interesting how much more bass there is in Hera's voice in Spirit's production setup

[@felipemonasterio6397]

Hey Spirit nice video once again. I wonder if you could do a video on how useful Greek Fire (Bizantine unique tech) is. Keep it up! Good job to Hera as well.

[@discoooooooo]

yay best intro is back

[@IronDuh]

ever since i know that SotL himself composed the intro song, i don't skip it anymore lol

[@jefffinkbonner9551]

Why would you EVER skip it?

[@dj_koen1265]

Its a certified banger

[@daarom3472]

@8:45 Hera doing a nice Korg impression.

[@antifapers]

amazing analysis

[@cbflazaro]

In unranked I always click up to feudal with 30. people mock me for being "slow", but when i hit castle i can make 4 TCS and start spamming vills and trash instantly.

[@phdbot4483]

I'll have to take notes of this. I like making fast castle builds most of the time, but I need work my feudal builds for not only aging up, but preparing my army quickly enough for a good rush or defending, especially in Arabia. Though I have had games where I age too early for what I wanna make, setting me back, so when I play Malay, I'll sometimes go up after an extra villager or two instead and try to age around the other civs' "normal" uptime, so I have a few more resouces/villagers to work with.

[@c182SkylaneRG]

Yeah, I was really confused when I played DE for the first time, as to why I had so much wood left over when I'd built my first 3 houses (125 instead of 110), and it took me a bit to figure out that Houses are 25 wood, now... Honestly, I'm a slower player, anyway, so I miss the old version of the game if the new version is speeding things up.

[@Plzpetmyrooster]

I like the new intro :)

[@Gui101do]

You and Hera make a great team! Like peanut butter and Janissaries!

[@Goldenblade14]

Those first 10 seconds hurt me.

[@evennstvold1487]

Intro is back

[@marcelotononBR]

Hey Spirit of the Law, one thing I would appreciate would be you discuss the ports in japanese dark and feudal age. I think... it’s tempting to thing you can have two “town centers” because of the town center and the ports.

[@ryand5436]

I died when Nili told Hera to get a life after those sick quick walls. 10/10

[@GummieI]

I am wondering when you do these kind of videos do you actually show the first math part to the player you are talking with before the interview or not?

[@Learning_Aviation]

I would love to see how effective a country's economy would be if SOTL was in charge of it.

[@WildVoltorb]

please stop. laisse faire

[@srbishkrst]

it would be nice if you discuss with hera the buildorder. I dont mean to show the exactly buildorder; i mean to discuss how much vills on wood when going archers (i assume 4 in the beginning, 6 on sheep). What about later? I think you should discuss that with him.

[@thevillager6816]

Nice vid sotl, what about 39,I barely make Villagers later on so I do it all in the dark age

[@stoolyman]

Hera and Spirit=best bromance ever Change my mind!

[@16semiquavers]

They exude Canadian niceness!

[@Reluxthelegend]

Surprised how the malay bonus plays on all this.

[@TheFalco708]

hera ? wait I wanted to head viper

[@JustDaZack]

Me confused!? Didn't this exact video already exist or am I in the wrong parallel world again? Good video regardless 😊

[@virgileusa]

same feeling here

[@noahslippy214]

Spirit, could you do a hunting vid? What makes it worth it to hunt deer? What distance is too far? If there board and deer next to each other but far from berries, is it better to build a mill there instead of at berries? Or build 2 mills? How about killing enemy deer strats? Or any other tips and tricks?

[@scipioafricanus4205]

There is little power

[@normandypilot8873]

And here I am going up with 25 pop pretty much everytime because i forget to build houses after the fourth one.

[@fiable262626]

You still need to do a vid on saracen market rush

[@Xenotric]

I wonder what the mathematically fastest advance would be given all resources being known and gathered at a rate regardless of camp locations etc and wether there would be any negatives for cutting everything extraneous to that

[@SapioiT]

What are the economics and implications of rushing wheelbarrow? I mean, I know the meta is to not make it right off the bat, but I wonder if it would be more effective to rush the wheelbarrow, in general, for better economy.

[@Ruja89]

Could you please name the titles of the background music tracks that you use? Many thanks for all of your videos!

[@JamesEck]

Ah! Maining Mongols has skewed my perspective! No wonder my early feudal with other civs is giving me so much trouble!

[@4everdex]

Its crazy how much the gamehas changed in these few years skill and metawise. Back ghen hera not recommending 21pop scouts for anyone below 1500elo, while nowadays every 1200 is playing 18pop scouts :D

[@nicolasgonzales4874]

It would be interesting to update this video given the much more aggressive metagame today than at the time. Scout rushes at 17 or 18 pop and archer rushes at 18 or 19 pop have become frequent, even around 1100 ELO...

[@simonnielsen5565]

Well, you could also be MBL and do a 16 pop fast castle rush...

[@skriskos]

I think you're wrong that +1 vill in Dark Age is somehow even more resources at 16:30.. it's the same as the bonus just after hitting feudal and making +1 vill

[@PJOZeus]

Honestly helps in rts other then AOE as well, one point that feels worth mentioning is the comparison compared to current villagers, like relatively, the difference between 6 and 7 villagers, is huge compared to 30 to 31 or more realistically, 16-17 compared to 21-22

[@Felix_EN]

@13:00 khmer can do a decent 16 or 17 pop scout rush too

[@dislexyc]

0 mentions of fast imp? As a feitoria lover, I feel attacked

[@MikeKing001]

Feitoria is only good after all the other resources are gone. Quick imperial feitoria is you spending resources to earn resources slower.

[@dislexyc]

@@MikeKing001 can't change my heart, I'm all for optimal play until imp then all hell breaks loose

[@Alche_mist]

@@MikeKing001 Except for the short window of eco spike just when you build it with all the production kicking in at once (while reducing the cognitive load due to not having to manage those vils). Most of the times, it's still far inferior to Fast Castle into Boom and in general a meme strat for the highest level, but when used as a lead into Gunpowder in the Arena, it might catch someone off-guard. Check TheViper's Feitoria strat from several months ago (on T90's channel) to see what I mean. Anyway, Fast Imp is so civ-specific that talking it generally has no point. And I can think of only two situations (Turks or Portuguese on Arena, trying to use the single high power-spike to really leave a dent in the opponent) where it's not obviously a bad idea.

[@MikeKing001]

@@Alche_mist it takes villagers to build meaning you lose that work time. So there really is no eco spike. Also you are less likely to fight for neutral golds and stones giving them to your opponent for free. Building a feitoria before they are gone is like relying solely on berries to age up and letting the enemy have your sheep and boar.

[@Jossandoval]

@@MikeKing001 The "spike" is access to Imperial Units, nothing more. So, Turks with free chemistry, +25% health in gunpowder units and free hussars, or Portuguese with 15% gold discount on units and Feitoria to try to delay your collapse a tiny bit. If your Fast Imp sucker punch fails, you are done, gg.

[@SuperMewKittyKatGaming]

Bulgarian villager says :"TOUCHES DA LION"

[@petersmythe6462]

I saw a low ELO player go 13 pop feudal. It was ridiculous. They ruined their economy but eventually they did mass longbows, carried their ally, and won the team Arena game

[@js2555]

Have you done a video on whether one should put a mill one tile away from berries or not? Always wandering about that...

[@dontspikemydrink9382]

Just look it up js

[@BoxofRain-ff4td]

I don’t even take the time to watch your videos... To give them a like!

[@Apoz]

Can we get some new build orders out based on this video?

[@calebcouch2597]

Will we ever get a Cumans civ overview?

[@jakedavis5862]

Any good tips on tower placement?

[@EaglebeakGaming]

So about 50 res with the extra vill but it is also all your current vills collecting for an extra 25 seconds so something like 8-10 more res per villager so the difference between 21 to 22 pop means close 150 res?

[@emiskilrimusicproductions]

I always have one town center. If I have 2, that's kinda rare to see, haha

[@drschwandi3687]

Ok i will boom to 200 vills in dark age from now on

[@koldfire7253]

The problem is, no matter how many tutorials i watch, I'll always hit feudal as long as i collect 500 food (having a few vil on wood and gold)

[@Morrneyo]

0:00 hehe it's a gate take that 0:07 goddammit

[@markvanderwerf8592]

Math seems a bit off. 1 villager up later gives 130 villager seconds which is ~45 resources. Wood bonus from double bit axe is ~1.7 per wood villager. So typically around 10 wood vils for 22 pop feudal so the cost directly is 45-17= 28 resources. Earlier scout upgrade (speed, dmg, los) and earlier access to farm upgrade is also big though. Horse collar basically makes a farm ~40% more wood effective so making a dark age farm vs a feudal one also 'costs' ~20 wood. With scouts where you want to farm fast fast up is really the way to go i think. Faster wood up and farms after horse collar save almost as much as the cost. For malay fast feudal into horse collar and double bit always best i think. You only lose 78 villager seconds or about 25 resources going up and with 10 wood vils the earlier double bit pays back most of that. Then being able to put down horse collar farms right away makes it economically better to go up fast, especially with the scout bonus. For Arena i think for example Malay should go up with 20 pop and then pop down some farms after horse collar.

[@ernest6716]

17:10 that micro tho

[@satyakisil9711]

only if he walled besides the house to trap the army in.

[@manu85345]

Nice

[@Joshuamrsnrub325]

There is a mathematical error at 3:58, the equations should have a multiplication of 1.2 rather than 0.2. For what ur calculating ig it makes sense, but a more accurate way to calculate the villager increase is finding the total wood gathered then increase it by 1.2x since u will still have the same amount of vils anyways

[@markdowse3572]

This video is an amazing example of how SOTL excels at micro micro gaming. I can't even play the game because my computer is old and does not comply......

[@addyponty4928]

I wish we had you as our math teacher

[@calebcouch2597]

Hey man, do you stream on twitch?

[@Michal235]

I miss the old logo :(

[@sabatuur8791]

19:35 Does he mean 25, 26 villagers in Dark Age (and then +2) or Feudal?

[@AsymptotelyImpaired]

Maybe I haven't seen it and you already do; but are you going to consider going to be a pro-caster for AoE? You have such good commentary and interview skills.

[@mondainicorradi]

i have a question there is any video SotL that made de high level meta change? or made the pros trying new strategies?

[@wanderhund8883]

Who would dislike this Video. I cant Think of a Reason.

[@crazymanmot]

I'd like to see these two play 1v1. I know SOTL would get crushed but then he could analyze the replay for us of him getting rekt.

[@killeasykill]

can franks do a scout+tower rush ?