Ranking the University Techs (AoE2)

[@JJBeauregard1]

I would like to give "Heated Shot" an F for misleading me for years as a kid into thinking that it was the tech that made my Archers shoot cool fire arrows. >:(

[@Pinnster]

Even description is missleading. It literally says +125% tower damage; +4 castle damage vs ships like tower just get damage boost vs everything and castle just dmg vs ships

[@ImRandomDude]

@@Pinnster all % descriptions shoulnt be trusted and are worth looking into

[@lonewolforigin]

It was originally a "must research" tech when your opponent had a Camel civ. After devs fixed the Camels Ships, Heated Shot became the #1 useless tech.

[@llSuperSnivyll]

@@Pinnster One of my biggest complaints towards Definitive Edition is that they've done nothing to solve those cases of misleading descriptions or hidden attributes. It shouldn't be the case in any game to have to search on the internet to see how something actually works.

[@pari6410]

F for fire arrrows

[@AD-qc5zd]

Now I can finally get a degree!

[@TheAmericanPrometheus]

tfw your academic advisor won't let you double major in Ballistics and Murder Holes

[@Rika101OfficialYT]

Degree in masonry/architecture? Or chemistry? Siege engineering? 😂

[@aaaaaaaard9586]

I bet there's actually a phd major in murder holes and arrow slits

[@natural_20s]

Bah dum tsssss

[@a.nonimus6705]

With SOTL as your professor, your education will be top notch

[@Magz215]

Its crazy to think how crazy strong towers of all variations used to be compared to now. I have a feeling this list would've been a bit different a few years ago.

[@mintoo2cool]

totally. aggressive play is the only way to play .. there is absolutely no chance of turtling anymore.

[@raptorhacker599]

Devs keep pandering to rush play because that's how pros play.

[@TheAmericanPrometheus]

**cries in Korean**

[@UrosDrljaca]

​@@raptorhacker599and it's more interesting

[@magesticalmysterium6856]

Atleast Modders can make Defensive play stronger, I like to whenever I mod my game, Towers got...a rather large improvement too

[@injest1928]

To think, back in the medieval era archers had to take a degree to shoot ahead of their opponent

[@MaartenvanHeek]

I would like to think of it more as an accuracy thing, though there's also thumb ring for that. But you can argue that a ballistic arrow always lands on target (given an experienced archer), while a non ballistic arrow has a more unpredictable trajectory. In the game, this is modelled as archers missing the target "on purpose".

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

It's always been weird that it's chemistry, and not heated shots, that make arrows look flaming.

[@SirQuantization]

Easy, they only knew how to heat the balls up and chemistry taught them how to set them on fire

[@AgentForest]

Honestly, both should have that effect. Setting arrows on fire and having them stay burning once fired DOES require special chemicals though, so it checks out. Heated Shot should honestly cause ships to get animation that they're on fire. Just to really differentiate the two techs.

[@runzeeducation5621]

Heated shot should increase damage VS wooden items aka siege and non stone buildings

[@DowaHawkiin]

You research chemistry and get napalm

[@DinnerForkTongue]

​@@DowaHawkiin Greek fire, round 2.

[@shigerufan1]

Left out that Spanish cannon galleons are affected by ballistics too, essentially making them a third unique unit that can down other ships with the increased projectile speed.

[@curlywhites]

Then you forgot to mention that ballistics affect roman scorpions.

[@AgentForest]

Honestly, this is what makes a Spanish navy so potent. You just mix a bunch of cannon galleons in with your regular ships and the enemy navy becomes splinters with a simple attack move command.

[@devangnivatkar2649]

Spanish Cannon Galleons don't actually need Ballistics to fire ballistically. The bonus is independent of you researching the tech

[@YossarianVanDriver]

I just wanna say I love the little scene with the riverside university, the scholars discussing stuff and even the Ballistics "class" out back. Just a really pleasant bit of scenery to look at.

[@brotendochill7053]

so subtle

[@onrean]

Heated shot has an even bigger effect when the castle is filled with archers. Castles become chokepoints by which ships cannot pass. Transports will also die really fast and have not chance to drop units.

[@Mangeol]

I manage a mod that I mostly play with friends. In the mod I made it so that heated shot gives you +1 vs siege for arrows. This actually makes heated shot a somewhat useful tech in certain scenarios.

[@Nazuiko]

Heated Shot giving a bonus vs siege as well as ships makes a lot of sense. And honestly id expect Ships to just have Siege armor anyway or vice versa

[@bradenpeppenger]

Mod name?

[@roscaris6541]

That's a fantastic, intuitive & balanced idea for the tech. I wish a developer saw your comment.

[@Mangeol]

@@roscaris6541 yeah about that. It's actually interesting how many changes I implemented that has gotten added to the base game over time. Sometimes we have same initial balancing issue in mind but try to touch on it differently. One example is swapping Burmese unique techs around. Another is giving Dravidians bombard Cannon. I am often a bit more aggressive with balancing though for better or worse😉

[@Mangeol]

@@bradenpeppenger The name of the mod is Leetz Balance Tweaks. I have a UI mod that comes with it. Without UI mod it works fine but some bonuses will not be displayed and some tech is wrong. Costs and stats are always correct. UI mod is frankly a pain😅

[@alexus_aaaaa]

0:10 top left corner, how the archer misses perfectly so that the arrows land on the same 3 spots every single time. I looked at it for hours. It's beautiful!

[@TechbotALPHA]

I THOUGHT something was up when, coming back to AoE2 years later, Bombard Towers weren't as good as they used to be. When they still struggled against rams I was like "Wait, what?" and it's taken until this video for it to make sense. Great vid, and thank you for all the videos you make; every single on them is useful, helpful and/or fun in one way or another!

[@bristleback3614]

the main purpose of heated shot is when the glowing iron ball landed on the enemy ship it'll slowly burning the ship while also making them harder to remove

[@Lockieez]

So true about Murder Holes in the campaign. Definitely one of the first upgrades I get especially on harder difficulties where the AI throws loads of units at your castles.

[@biegaliusz4439]

Once again AOE1 helped understand university techs, ballistics and chemistry have the same effect like in aoe2 and thanks to my familiarity i wasnt mislead by pictures

[@tech2titan444]

Arrowslits is essential for Sicilians since they 1. Always fire a second arrow effectively doubling it's effect and 2. their Towers don't do as much damage per shot to begin with meaning the static damage increase is more essential to keep up with the more heavily armored units.

[@Jovian999]

I'd like to credit Heated Shot for its supremacy in those classic team games against the AI where you turned your team island into an impregnable fortress with a simple network of towers.

[@onebigfatguy]

Honestly they could put the Arrow slit tech back to it's old damage bonus values and you would still barely see many towers past Feudal age. It's a tech that only really makes sense if your stuck on the defensive and even then I'm not sure how much effect you would get out of it. It makes a lot more sense as a tech to pick up in the campaign missions where towers get a lot more use.

[@WiscoDrinks]

It might help to simply make it a castle age tech.

[@bloopboop9320]

It made Korean tower rushing a lot more formidable.

[@elliotkamper]

my vote is to put it back at castle age. Considering that it is part of the late tech tree expansion, any changes are possible and welcome.

[@landonlecoq5660]

Atleast buff it to +2/+3/+4 damage if +2/+4/+6 damage is too much. But then again, bombard towers do A LOT more damage to begin with IF they connect.

[@morgs5118]

​@@landonlecoq5660I was about to say this ahaha. +1 is way too weak and on the other end of things, +6 is way too strong.

[@scespinosab]

Many players still underestimate the effect of Masonry; it's incredible the amout of castles I have saved for that single tech.

[@lolwhale6283]

I usually click masonry first and only then ballistics even when I´m going for archers and I always go for architecture if I can. They are super helpful and they only cost a pathetic amount of wood and food

[@starcraft2own]

@@lolwhale6283 The only reason i think you're objectively wrong about this is the research time. It's not like your buildings will be in any game losing danger when you both hit castle, but your archers sure are. Ballistic is a technology you can win games from getting. While i would agree with masonry second is a really smart choice, you seriously have to consider what gives you the most benefits the second you hit castle. He still has to build a siege workshop before he can threathen your buildings and if he is going infantry, ballistic is a way better solution to keeping your buildings alive against infantry than masonry. If he can't reach your buildings to begin with, why spend time getting masonry first?

[@lolwhale6283]

Man, I hope they release a civ with ballistics as an free and instant tech in castle age, so I can get my masonry in peace Or I could just play byzantines....!

[@hansoskar1911]

treadmill Crane is rarly researched in RM, mostly for Tower pushes. But having or not having it is an incredible diffrence in DM (if someone ever plays that) Hoardings vs Masonry isnt a question bc Hoardings blocks Treb produciton time and Masonry doesnt.

[@CrnaStrela]

Don't worry about it, DM played a lot to the point they did some balance changes revolving around DM like how Franks lose Treadmill Crane and Chivalry moved to imp tech.

[@paradigmagabriel7500]

Slightly unrelated to the topics, but the existence of Romans in AOE2 with their double infantry armor effect has open such new possibility for future civ bonuses. Imagine having double the effect of every other blacksmith techs, or maybe even other techs like double the effect of thumb ring, double effect of bloodlines, double loom, wheelbarrow, chemistry, etc. Just imagine the possibilities, please take notes dear Krakenmeister AOE2 Civ Builder

[@elliotkamper]

Malians would have been a good candidate for boni from uni techs! Since that civ IA established and quire balanced now, what new or existing civ would have a practical and historical justification for it? That said, I am impressed by how innovative the devs have been with offering mostly unique boni for expansion civs.

[@paradigmagabriel7500]

@@elliotkamper Cavalry receiving double effect for attack and armor sounds very wild tho, it feels like suddenly my entire cavalry line having the mix of Boyar and Huskarl flavor to it, in addition of having Malians cavalry by just researching your regular blacksmith techs

[@BryanLikesCandy]

Double Ballistics: all missiles hit their targets without fail, regardless of micro and other evasion tactics.

[@rubywest5166]

Sicilians already have it for Farming upgrades... But then that's just long term efficiency vs a massive increase in something directly useful

[@RealZeratul]

​@@BryanLikesCandy Nah, that's the photon man upgrade, double ballistics makes every archer lead twice as much to guarantee missing non-stationary targets. :P

[@saffral]

I appreciate how the hook on Treadmill Crane looks like it's holding up the 8, nice touch.

[@danielkunicki5927]

Heated shot should add bonus damage vs siege. That would spice things up. Also in your Chemistry affected crowd rattan archer is missing :)

[@EhurtAfy]

Bombard Tower being useless against rams bugs me the most, it always seemed like it should be anti-siege/rams, something that can protect walls, or at least function like a stationary bombard cannon unit

[@KaoticPhoenix]

They used to deal melee damage and were very good against rams. I have no idea why they made the change for it to do pierce damage.

[@EhurtAfy]

@@KaoticPhoenix I played Age 2 since The Conquerors on CD so maybe that's why I thought they were for that purpose also, depending on when the change was made

[@HiyokoSupiritto]

I find it interesting in how some civs doesn't have treadmill crane because they can be strong on death match like Slavs, Franks, Huns, khmer, etc.

[@wingchun2147]

Its hard to imagine towers ever being strong when you need 6/12 university techs and blacksmith upgrades just to be a decent threat.

[@curlywhites]

To be fair, those blacksmith upgrades and half of those university techs you'll already be researching anyway. So researching guard tower/keep and arrowslits are the only technologies you'd have to go out of your way for.

[@mistermaster256]

I always thought that instead of Chemistry giving +1 attack, it should instead give more ranged unit bonus damage to buildings and ships. Just makes more sense with flaming projectiles, but it also would be interesting to see ranged units like archers more easily able to take down buildings.

[@Taydris0]

Another great great video, SOTL. Thank you! Consider giving us an updated Saracens civ video and/or a Through The Ages Saracens video next?

[@roguebanshee]

What about an updated Worst & Best Unique techs to keep up with all the balance changes and new civs since the last videos on the subject. As far as I'm concerned, Treadmill Crane is useful for getting production buildings ready faster, which can help a lot if your economy is in a spot where you can pump out a lot of units.

[@redbasher636]

You FEEL that speed increase when building castles. Can do 3 villagers instead of 4

[@jacobhangenwx]

Sort of unrelated but I think it would be a really interesting video to analyze if being on the top, bottom, left or right of a map has any measurable advantage. Because the map is the same orientation for all it's an asymmetry players need to contend with and your the only channel that could work with ranked data in this way

[@popebobcat3716]

I still don't know how all the calculations of heated shot works but using the 256x cheat/mod, getting it 7 times seems to cause towers to one-shot everything under the sun.

[@CAR912b]

I noticed this too - it also works with the "going above and beyond" cheat. Sometimes it glitches out and stops one-shotting until you research heated shot a few additional times. (Seems that sometimes researching sanctity breaks it??) No idea what hidden effect(s) cause it to work this way.

[@inductivegrunt94]

Chemistry and Ballistics being number 2 and 1 is no surprise to me. They are always a must have for any civ who gets them. And Siege Engineers will always be hilarious because Tatars get them alongside Timurid Siegecraft giving Trebs +3 range giving Trebs 19 total range, the highest of any non-hero unit in the game and behind the hero Treb "Warwolf" by only 2 range. It's always been something I found funny to me. Great ranking video, and I hope to see more in the future.

[@astrid2432]

treadmill crane has the added advantages that stuff works sooner, like if you are housed, you don't need to wait the full time for it or with military building, you can produce quicker units, which can add up quickly

[@tylerrussell4143]

I think that main takeaway is that we need to MAKE TOWERS GREAT AGAIN!!!

[@Nazuiko]

DEUS VULT my Teutonic brethren !

[@kenc00l]

Yes!

[@BryanLikesCandy]

Build the Tower Wall!

[@andomlyranonymous6488]

And by towers you are obviously referring to siege towers I hope! Not that they were ever great...

[@alltmisc]

No thanks towers suck and will keep doing that

[@tuxness]

I am a simple man, I see a new SoTL video, I like and watch immediately

[@sewersideproductions2606]

I stopped playing AOE II back when bombard towers did melee damage. After picking it back up a few years ago, I was shocked at how much the new bombard towers totally sucked. In my opinion they really should bring that back because it justified the cost. As it stands now, a giant cannonball falling on a unit does the same amount of damage as a tiny little arrow. It’s ridiculous.

[@tsardean9192]

If you play a lot of Black Forest/Amazon Tunnel bombard towers are already powerful enough as is. If some Portugese-playing fella drops a million of them it's a real pain

[@sewersideproductions2606]

Really? Because I remember one game building a ton of them post-nerf (without realizing they had changed), and they were like sitting ducks against any small group of rams due to the lack of splash and melee damage. The first ram would usually be destroyed, but anything more than that would easily make it through and knock it down.

[@meeeeeeeeeeee]

I agree, everything in AoC was an upgrade over AoK to me except for the BBT thing. They went from sorta useful to totally useless.

[@sewersideproductions2606]

@@meeeeeeeeeeee Right. Now the BBTs are equivalent to an early Castle-age tech that’s only available late Imperial, after huge investment. Like if rams were only available late imperial and at huge cost. Sure, rams are decent, but why bother when you already have trebs?

[@Anxiou5Panda]

I agree with this. I feel like Bombard Towers should be a counter to rams but with varrying degrees of damage outputs depending on which ram is present. Let's say, 'Bombard Towers deal 125% more damage to Battering Rams, 100% more damage to Capped Rams, and 75% more to Siege Rams.' Towers are already countered by Trebs and Bombard Cannons and AFAIK all Civs have the former. IMO, this change should encourage more Bombard Tower construction AND slightly discourages players to rely on rams alone when attempting to siege. Like, if you want to siege, you better bring your Trebs or BBCs with you.

[@nsmnk3922]

12:17 The arrow knows where it is at all times. It knows this, because it knows where it isn't.

[@kostadinpantev]

I often go for Treadmill crane, just because it feels right.

[@belisarian6429]

I sometimes go for it as well, since I think it helps in important moments, like you need quickly switch from cav to archers? Build ton of ranges, and this helps with that.

[@dj_koen1265]

I always get it lategame when im not using the university and dont need wood or food

[@PauxloE]

"If you told me a game ends in Castle age and only one Tech from the University was researched, it's almost certainly this one" - or some other tech was researched, leading to a loss very soon due to not having ballistics.

[@Geothesponge111]

There's one situation that I will ALWAYS recommend Murder Holes for: When you and your opponent end up building castles in range of each other due to racing each other over a castle drop. In that situation not having Murder Holes means your opponent can cover the base of your castle with arrow fire, but you can't, which gives them a lot of room to attack with melee units.

[@programmer437]

It’s funny because when I used to play when AOE2 back in the early 2000s I’d DUMP resources into the university as soon as I could. These days I don’t even always build one until Imperial age for Chemistry - I put all that food and gold into units instead.

[@Krbyfan1]

The notes about Heated Shot make sense but it makes me wonder if they would ever give the Mesoamerican civs something like the Dromon. Probably not, but it's funny to consider Goths and Huns used to have access to the Cannon Galleon at one point.

[@sihangshao8236]

can you make a video explaining scores, and what’s the fastest way to get them? My mom is always concerned about catching up with me in term of scores and would appreciate you for helping her out.

[@starcraft2own]

I can just give you a real short explanation. Early game you get a lot of score from scouting. Lets say you just scout around your base and then stop but your opponent keeps scouting the entire map, that's a good 300-400 score lead they'll get. Second is resources in your bank, the more resources you float the higher your score. For example, if you research feudal age you lose score because you lost 500 food. You will gain some score back when you hit feudal because that gives you some extra score because its an upgrade and feudal gives score just because its a new tech level. Third is military units and kills. Making units both take away some score and gives you score, as you use resources to make them. But killing units is usually what gives you score leads later in the game. Let's say every unit has 20 score attached to it, 5 for the resources, 10 for existing and 5 extra just because. When it dies, only the 5 extra score remains but your opponent will get 10 score for the kill, plus take away 15 of your score. Best way to get back in score is to make a better economy with more villagers and more upgrades. If she's not that good at playing, just making more stuff in general is probably the easiest way, and upgrades. However, catching back up on score is hard because the stronger you are the more score you generate, when you're behind you generate less and the only way to catch up to a better player is to kill more units than them, if you're better at making large eco and stuff like that she stands little chance. But i think the best way to ease the score fear is to explain to her that a lot of your score comes from your kills and fighting.

[@roscaris6541]

Your mom plays Aoe2? Haha, that's awesome

[@Progeusz]

@@starcraft2ownResources in the bank are awful for score. Used resources give twice as much score as banked resource. Every 10 resources in the bank is 1 score but every 10 resources used (on researching tech, making a building, recruiting a unit and KILLING a unit) is 2 points. Researching Feudal is temporary 50 points loss but upon research you get 100 points, so you are 50 points higher than if you never researched it.

[@starcraft2own]

@@Progeusz Which i explained.

[@sihangshao8236]

@@starcraft2own Thanks man! This helped a lot

[@TonyRedgrave]

2:45 "Useless besides the minor uptick in score it provides to intimidate your opponent." Oh no! He's found out my master strategy!

[@akshayherur6963]

I couldn't help but notice you favoured techs that are used offensively vs defensively. Granted, they can be passed of as more flexible... But the keep upgrades should be ranked a bit higher IMO. Love your vids and the the research you put into it. The economic cost of treadmill cranes was quite interesting.

[@starcraft2own]

By the time you get keeps, they won't really be there to help you any. Towers are only useful in feudal to castle age and after that, your opponent can just ignore the towers. The only real use for keeps is if you use them aggressively which only certain civs can do, and those games rarely last to imperial, but when they do being able to get keeps is useful. Towers defensively fall off super hard the later in the game you get. Towers against scouts is alright, towers against light cavalry could work too, towers against paladins is just a waste of stone.

[@meeeeeeeeeeee]

@@starcraft2own Agreed. I always found it weird how towers don't keep up with unit upgrades at all in castle/imp. Enemy units can sit in the one little area of the map your expensive tower is able to hit, and they still take almost no damage, plus they can destroy it pretty easily if they really want to. Sad that such iconic medieval buildings are useless ingame.

[@JD-qq8fz]

The archer that just can't hit the patrolling man-at-arms in the background... great intro, very thematic haha

[@petrseghman4283]

Spirit of the Law videos will never be the same after watching Masmorra's interview.

[@MrArekrem]

I just wanted to say that I really appreciate that little diorama at the beginning.

[@Lightning_Lance]

Needing Ballistics to shoot where an enemy is going to be makes it sound like a math professor is standing next to the archer and graphing out where they need to shoot. "If they move x meters per second, bla bla". Or maybe your archers are tanks with a guidance system.

[@greatstag]

Thanks SOTL, you always have helpful and insightful video ideas

[@richeybaumann1755]

I think that your investigation of the "economic argument" for Treadmill Crane is probably the most decisive "no" I've ever seen in a video of yours. It may make Villagers faster at building, but you certainly tore that argument down.

[@Wiwerest]

Back in the day sometimes it was better to skip chemistry as it made scorpions and onagers projectiles slower than regular ones

[@WashingMykale]

Heated shot on fireship makes sense since the ship is full of flammable.

[@shykorustotora]

I've loving the rapid fire videos~ You're making me wanna get back into the game now that I'm learning so much, so fast~

[@hggjack]

MUUURDER HOLES

[@James-sk4db]

As a Teutons main I never bother with murderholes, never research it

[@micahbush5397]

​@@James-sk4dbOnly because you get it for free.

[@ScarletDeathweaverLegacy]

13:13 "Class Dismissed" lol but overall great video

[@thomasvickers6583]

Another incredible breakdown. Thanks again SotL, the community appreciates all your hard work!

[@markdowse3572]

@ 2:44 "The minor up-tick in score it provides to intimidate your opponent..." Lovely little bit of sarcasm there, SoTL! Very nice. 😋👍 Seems the overall nerfing of the Tower Line has had a major effect on University techs. Another excellent analysis, sir! 🤗 M 🦘🏏😎

[@hwate8]

2:42 Fun fact: if you stack Heated Shot enough times with Going Above And Beyond or any 256*Tech mod, eventually the 'bonus' damage for Towers will override all land units' innate 10,000 resist to such, and they'll start doing insanely-high damage to everything around them, even through Armor. The only downside is that Heated Shot isn't available to the Byzantines for their Bombard Towers or the Georgians for their Keeps, so you're limited to Celts' faster firing speed and Portuguese's increased projectile speed.

[@Lektris_]

As a kid I didn't know any English and I remember being confused for the whole evening when I researched ballistics on AoC and yet didn't get access to bombard cannons. I knew that I previously had to do the bbc tech in AoK.

[@demiserofd]

Treadmill Crane's biggest utility is probably if you need to make a bunch of production buildings quickly. You could kinda see it as similar to the "Barracks produce 20% Faster" team bonuses in a way; if you can build 6 barracks in the time it takes your enemy to build 5, then you'll outnumber him and win. Of course, that only really becomes relevant in the lategame when you start spamming units at your enemy, so there's probably a very precise window where you'd want to grab it. Not too early, and not too late.

[@michaelmartin2262]

I remember being in Highschool with computer lab kids would play against architect class kids. Towers would be EVERYWHERE. They would slow you down allow the other class to react to you while you look for their weak spots. We never even considered building more than one tc/castle back then. Lol

[@Zooooch1989]

Thanks Spirit! I automatically knew you'd put heated shot at the bottom lol

[@MrMarinus18]

I think they could give it a boost by also giving heated shot a small damage boost against siege. Though that would hurt the ram.

[@AgentForest]

I think the main advantage to Heated Shot is that it saves you gold when defending on water maps. It forces the enemy's hand, making them prioritize cannon galleons, and all you need to defend against that are 20 or so fast fire ships. You don't need a full navy to defend, so the enemy has to throw gold at your wood and stone. Personally, on Island maps, I use heated shot towers to guard the islands in the center that I quickly take over. This gives me even more of a gold edge on the enemy (less so for stone, as I'm building so many towers with it, but still an advantage). I essentially make the center of the map a bramble patch the enemy suffers for passing through, and I put a dock or two on each island (lots of fish and I can then reactively defend with ships no matter what area they're sieging. I make the center of the map my forward naval base that's impenetrable. Sure, they could go around, but it's still a central staging area for my own navy to get to any front where they're needed. And again, I don't need as big or diverse of a navy to make it work with that many towers. This plays into my common strategy of using cheaper units to bleed my enemy of gold until they have to resort to the same cheap units, then I can rush out a serious army when they can no longer afford to stop me. I still agree that Heated Shot is probably the weakest University tech, being completely situational and map dependent, but the bonus it provides is actually pretty solid. Once you have it, the enemy has to change their tactics and invest resources just to respond. It completely changes naval warfare when implemented well.

[@Emma_Stone_Walls]

It pains me how under used stone walls are in higher level competitive games, hopefully this video will start the change! :)

[@davidguapato]

I really would love to play good towers strategies. Making towers powerful at the expense of their durability in imp age i think would make them amazing and really useful. Also, I think heated shot should do they chemistry effect, and ballistics should have a better icon hahaha Nice vid

[@darkdill]

Heated Shot's value comes from how it allows your towers and castles to become utter death zones for enemy ships. There was one game between TheViper (Vikings) and Hera (Koreans) where TheViper's Longboats got utterly shredded when he tried to dive several Bombard Cannons under a Castle and several Keeps. Here's the match in question: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rImZf31tj7eLa7M The real value of Heated Shot is that it's an area-denial tech for ships. Situational, but very powerful in said situation.

[@jussi3378]

Just saw a match in NAC5 where one of the players researched it to deny fishing ships more effectively in a small pond while tower rushing

[@UnDeaDCyBorg]

Love the start- and end-scene. Quaint.

[@Isvoor]

Me bingewatching SotL while not having played this game for 15 years: That's good to know

[@Real_MisterSir]

I want to point out a benefit of treadmill crane, which is the convenience of redistributing resource allocation (and seeing Villagers as a resource). While it may mathematically take a long time to recoup the cost itself, that's not really the value I see in the technology. I see it more as a form of insurance, where you spend resources early upfront from villagers that can gather where you know the resources are located - to then obtain a future benefit of being able to quickly adapt to changing situations even if you at that point in time do not have a lot of villagers present at the required location. Let's say you have a flank economy that is susceptible to raids, you may not have enough villagers present at that side of the map to wall off every area, but with crane you have a higher chance of successfully adapting to an unexpected situation that calls for a sudden restructuring of your building plan. Resources are predictable, they do not move, they can be planned for ahead of time. Knowing where fights will happen on the map in later stages of the game, which fronts will need reinforcement, which parts of your eco will need urgent defences - all of this is something you can not plan for. I find it highly beneficial for this reason, even if the outright math says the cost is tough to overcome from the time saved for villagers to return quickly to gathering resources again. That latter part, to me, is entirely besides the point of the tech. Please excuse my poor attempt at explaining my point concisely and efficiently. It is late and my last braincell is working overtime.

[@The_Stray_King]

How about a fastest unit tier list by age? I saw Ornalu the Wolf made one, but he didn't use husbandry. And he didn't do it by age. It can be infantry, cavalry, and navy

[@jhonylg4045]

12:30 😂 LOL that one is a great meme lol. Portuguese Bombard towers and gunpowder units have balistics tech in the Castle, thats why Portuguese bombard towers are brutal!

[@SleepyFen]

The whole thing about ballistics needing to be researched reminds me of Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the tortoise

[@georgeprchal3924]

Maybe they'll have a patch where Heated Shot now applies to ebemy siege units as well? Remember back in the day when Bombard Towers actually demolished rams? It could be like that.

[@trevorWilkinson]

I don't disagree with the treadmill crane position. But I think it's main advantage is in pushing late game. Rebuilding military buildings both to replenish output or to reduce travel distance for reinforcements. Suddenly finding yourself down 3 barracks will swing the momentum even more in an opponents favour. Being able to add 3 more near the front line, keeps the pressure on.

[@shangri-la-la-la]

Honestly if they were to change heated shot to causing ships and siege to catch on fire after taking damage from buildings and take 1 damage for the next 10 seconds that would be a welcomed change and make it well worth researching.

[@__lim494]

Arson needs that effect too

[@user-fq9eo2hj9o]

The idea is so cool! But I think the system of Age of Empire II is too old to handle this calculation

[@shangri-la-la-la]

@@__lim494 Thing is arson has practical use as is and is not questionable worth it on water maps and worthless on land maps.

[@arhkadian2389]

not a day goes by where i dont think about that comment that said "it sounds like hes saying spirit of the la hire" for the intro

[@TeunisD]

Heated shot is usefull in maps with small rivers that require the enemy to use ship for transport. In that scenario heated shot will work very well. Another comment: which tech is best ultimately depends on the situation.

[@justincronkright5025]

- Teuton Heated shot can reach basic cannon galleons that don't have siege engineers... And I think Dromons even if they do have them. - Also ArrowSlits for Britons gives them wild amounts of damage due to the unique tech adding 2. This gives them a huge boost against enemy knights to the point where Warwolf trebs are what your castles produce, you have faster working archery ranges for arbalesters, then just use your stone for Towers. They end up with 9 damage against paladins giving 20 hits to kill (only 2/3rds of a normal tower's required hits to kill). OR WAIT --- does chemistry affect towers, it says units. Sometimes this game is consistent in its choices of words and sometimes it really is not! Which means it's now 10 damage per tower shot for Britons!

[@andrewsenseigames]

(Heated) Shots fired.

[@minikawildflower]

Ranking the techs by how strong the icon looks would bring heated shot way up in the rankings lol

[@WilliamScavengerFish]

Spanish cannon galleons are fun to use when created in small ponds.

[@matheusrios4223]

I didn't have to watch to know that ballistics would be number one, its just that good.

[@Umdeuter]

I think Guard Tower is underrated as there are situations where it can be your main army. When you defend an eco advantage vs a Siege-Monk-Pike-push, then this is what you go for. So it does have a really important strategical place in the game which Treadmill Crane does not have (or even Murder Holes and Fortified Walls). Murder Holes btw is imo mostly useless because you need soooo much army to take down a castle. Either you have that much army and can take it down very quickly, then Murder Holes won't save it, or it's little army, then you have plenty of time to bring army there to clean them up anyway. It's a very specific amount of army, smth like 30 LS or 20 Champs I guess, where it really saves you (and then they can add just 10 units more). Also it's useless vs Rams. So it's mostly useful for defensive towers or Kreposts or so which are very rare.

[@dearberlin]

Great video! It would be cool, in future videos, to have the ressource appear in symbols rather than F or W. That would be more beginner friendly. Cheers!

[@Anxiou5Panda]

I feel like towers should get the "cannot-construct-buildings-if-it's-too-far-from-your-base" treatment like how it is in some RTS games. In Red Alert 2 for example, you can't construct buildings if it's too far from your base. I think the same should be applied to Towers, but not Castles, Kreposts, and Donjons, since those 3 are more expensive and can produce units. This is the only way I could think of right now that discourages Trush AND still maintain the old strength that towers used to have. The way to do this is, let's say, Towers can only be constructed 20 or 30 tiles away from a Town Center. Of course the amount can be tweaked for balance purposes. This way, it limits forward towers to Castle and Imperial Age since most civs can only create additional TCs during that time, and even then, a decent player wouldn't probably think of spending resources or time to build a TC first, and then 1 or 2 towers later on to justify the strat. All in all, this leaves towers primarily as a defensive structure like how they were probably intended.

[@quaintserpent]

Towers and castle should fire galleon's projectile to ships and siege, it is hilarious when few arrows sink ships. Also devs should release patch to enlarge defensive buildings like towers donjons castles etc by 1 tile. So basically Towers would be the size of house and not single stone brick. But when it comes to walls I'd love to see another upgrade for stone walls in imperial age and fortified palisade upgrade.

[@starcraft2own]

I'm not quite sure you know what you're asking for. If you change projectiles to galleons then they'd be so big you'd have to reduce the number fired, and that makes the castle quite a bit weaker against high pierce armored targets like ships, siege and certain units as a lot of their power comes from multiple attacks. And if you increase the size of defensive buildings, donjons would be the size of a barracks and a castle would be the size of a wonder. The sheer level of space two castles would take would make them extremely more vulnerable and clunky to use. And fortified walls are already indestructible to anything but siege rams. Making them any stronger would turn 4 hour long games to 7 hour long games. We've had fortified palisade but it just made early game a nightmare. Again, you wouldn't like the state the game would be in with all of these changes. Not to mention you'd have to redo like 90% of all the campaign maps with the way too large castles not fitting into any of the maps anymore.

[@jazzabighits4473]

I would've put ballistics first for sure, good pick

[@gtbrown1173]

All my homies love heated shot.

[@maskarone]

In my opinion guard tower is severely misplaced, they see a lot of use as defence against one TC mangonel pushes. Certainly it should be high than treadmill crane?

[@Lancefh_ENV]

Imagine instead of destroying castles there was a mechanic for actually sieging castle wher you have to reduce the castle HP before sending units like knights, pikemen, longsword, etc to capture it. It would add a nice dynamic but it would also be very difficult to implement because most players are just used to smashing everything down.

[@masterp2202]

This is actual AOE 2 classroom. You are too legit to quit! Never stop SOTL

[@WilliamScavengerFish]

Spanish villagers can also be used to bring down castles without murder holes.

[@TheKobasen]

I thought chemistry would be #1. Turns out ballistic is more important. Especially for Spanish on water map.

[@miguelbahamonde6321]

Great video as always!

[@sirlight-ljij]

New candy line has just opened, with patented "Nostalgia" sweetener. Nostalgia sweets -- used to taste better!

[@ilfedarkfairy]

Wow, I totally misses that camels aren't ships anymore. Good to know

[@CrazyIvan64]

I think if you split up Masonry and Architecture, I'd probably place Masonry above Siege Engineers as I feel like you only really ever need Siege Engineers if you're trying to mass Onagers or Heavy Scorpions, which most civs won't do. Basically every civ does build trebs, but at the price of Engineers it's usually better to just make another few trebs than pay for the research.

[@BirdMoose]

Heated shot should give bonus damage vs siege, still wouldn't be great, but I think a fair bit better. I've used heated shot in a few games with friends where there are heavy navy but a few choke points that I can tower/ castle. Made a huge difference since they would occasionally chase my retreating army into the trap, though I have no idea how much heated shot contributed vs. castle's already being good.

[@Kelari313]

The problem with bombard tower is that their projectiles are slower than normal tower shots and quite easy to dodge :-/

[@Zepoz]

I use treadmill crane often in 4v4, especially with goth or roman spam