Top 6 Bombard Tower civs (AoE2)

[@A.v.o.i.d]

You have made massive oversight in not including Bohemians 15% faster moving bombard towers.

[@quasibrodo923]

You stole my joke lol

[@darkdill]

Not to mention their Villagers get Sanctity and Fervor, so it's harder to stop them from putting them down. Then again, is that really useful when the Bombard Towers get bonus movement speed?

[@Slayerlord13]

That makes me curious though, if you mod the game to let bombard towers move, *would* theirs move faster?

[@A.v.o.i.d]

@@Slayerlord13 Yes movement speed of bombard towers would be increased. It is actually increased even now but: 0 tiles/sec * 1.15 = 0

[@AC-hj9tv]

Oh lawd bombard tower man comin

[@arckmage5218]

Can we just give a shoutout to the engineers who discovered that putting fletching and bodkin arrows on the balls and a bracer on the cannon would so drastically increase the range the cannonballs would fly.

[@Nazuiko]

I hd no idea Bombard towers benefitted from archer upgrades ... or shot more cannonballs when garrisoned.

[@mattwithahat3857]

That's the one thing I learned from the video today. I feel there is always something new to be discovered about AOE2 😂

[@PrimordialNightmare]

Fin Stabilized Discarding sabots invented just slightly early

[@WWFanatic0]

It never ceases to amaze me how SotL can find things to make videos on. Constantly teaching me things I never knew I wanted to know

[@blacklight4720]

Coming next... Which ranked map grass is greener? Which ranked map has more birds?

[@Zomgnomnom1]

​@@blacklight4720More birds, more strain on my hardware, dip in FPS could cost me the game. It's very important information

[@Gashahn24]

I did not know that Chu Ko Nu were also a part of the teuton bombard tower club.

[@ShuckedAeons]

A while back (I think in the patch that came with the Sicilians and Burgundians) they changed defensive structures to count extra projectiles when determining how many arrows an archer adds. This change made it so towers went from thinking Chu Ko Nu deal 14 damage with full upgrades to dealing 26, a huge jump.

[@deutscher1a]

we accept all good cannoneers If the tower makes boom, youre in

[@Pilgrim_HYR]

9:03 Teutons: we decide to renovate our home with some Mediterranean flavor!

[@mattwithahat3857]

Maybe that shot was taken during the HRE and the Teutonic Knights inspected some fortifications in northern Italy 😁

[@anonymousguy9745]

This reminds of the AoE3 campaign "But I need more black powder" "I am Ottoman. I have more black powder than you could possibly ever need" 😅😂

[@teddyhaines6613]

They never asked where Sahin kept the powder considering they'd just rescued him from captivity and all...

[@llSuperSnivyll]

Yet you don't unlock any gunpowder units on that mission (other than those from cards).

[@Binarokaro]

The bombard tower will always have a special place in my heart as my favourite in AoE2 as a child

[@Nazuiko]

Theyre the spiritual successor to my beloved Mirror Tower from aoE 1 scenario builder (and campaigns)

[@teddyhaines6613]

I played a Black Forest team game as Dravidians back before they were given bombard cannons and was at my wit's end against the Siege Onager spam I was facing. Bombard towers saved my team's skin on that side because the enemy was spending all their gold on SO and didn't have any trebs or bombard cannons to dislodge me.

[@astrid2432]

china: can use a tiny version of a canon in their hand can use a canon (maybe a big one) in a tower stationary but have no clue how to mix both or like put the canon on some wheels

[@ezrahuckabee82]

Great combo with Hera's video today lol

[@obesechicken13]

I wanted to try mass bombards on 4v4 black forest as turks mostly to stop raids but games kept ending before they mattered. I also remember that old video showing they're basically as good against Hussar raids as guard towers.

[@MrSiLenTb88]

Imagine you could garrison bombard cannons inside bombard towers! You would like fire a barrage of cannons

[@hiimalex_]

if this was best looking BBTs, it def have to be poles/bohemians

[@guidodepietro1017]

Please, now do an arrow tower list.

[@bluedistortions]

He's made several tower and castle and town center videos, but not in a "top ten" format. They should be a in a playlist though, because sometimes I forgot some of the ways they interact, like the first arrow being affected by building armor and the following arrows not, or something like that.

[@malikshabazz2065]

great stuff! keep up the awesome work :-)

[@droger1448]

Don't forget that bombard towers need... you guessed it! Bracer

[@varunmanjunath9123]

Am I the only one who now thinks Koreans should be #1 instead? The FREE bombard tower tech is better than Turk's Free chemistry, Spanish's faster construction or Byzantine's splash damage ALL COMBINED!!! Those quick bombard towers can also be mixed with several Eupseong towers to deny any bombard cannons too! Then you have the tanky war wagons to hold the ground until your villagers construct fortification! :D

[@michasokoowski6651]

I wish in honorable mentions would be a civ with amazing bonuses for bombard towers, but lacks bombard towers... xd

[@Reverend-ek6kt]

Don't Teuton bombards fire 2 cannonballs when full of HCs?

[@rubenmaessen4724]

I think bombard towers have a weird spot in the game. At first sight they look like a bombard cannon, with much more HP being a building, but without any mobility. But in fact they are more like a normal tower with higher damage with laughable (or cringeworthy) slow projectile. To me that lacks not just realism, but also a specific identity that would make the game more interesting. I always like to think bombard towers as: -costing 225 gold each like a bombard cannon instead of 100 gold now. -being available after researching chemistry and keep, dropping the bombard cannon upgrade. (it's just stupid that you still haven't figured out how to build a guard tower, while being able to build keeps with cannons instead of a bow after researching bombard tower) -projectiles moving as fast as bombard cannons, causing melee damage with friendly fire like bombard cannons -Not affected by ballistics or fletching, but the ability to attack ground. I am bothered by the sight of rams heavy countering bombard towers even better than castles or garrisoned normal towers. Rams should be able to counter towers and castles, but building bombard towers should force the opponent into trebs (or perhaps petards) if he wants to take them down imo, making the game more dynamic and interesting. I'm not saying my changes will be perfect and I realise there might be some unwanted effects, bit I would love some experiments with it. What do you think?

[@TheSpiritedFendron]

Blasphemy! Bohemians should've been number 1 for their faster moving bombard towers!

[@oqlassic8799]

I still kinda upset bombard tower not do melee damage anymore

[@Joakico]

8:35 Bombard tower tech doesn't cost gold 😅😅

[@ageofstrange657]

Since Bombard Towers take up 0 pop, who is shooting the canon? Even the unmanned Scorpion or Onanger take up one bed each, so what about the bombards or towers in general? Are these towers haunted or something?

[@landonlecoq5660]

They found the guy in the SC 2 Terran Missile Turret to fire them.

[@TheDedictvi]

top petard civs when

[@leonardo_pandaboff]

SoL spelling of Feitoria > T90 spelling of feitoria

[@saadfarooqui2056]

Miss the intro

[@sirlight-ljij]

Top 3 Siege Tower civs

[@AvelierPlays]

Towers are way too useless once trebs and cannons cone into the scene, which means by the time they are available the time and resources needed to make them are better spent elsewhere.

[@NowhereMan7]

"Paladin are useless once heavy camel and halbs are on the scene. The time are resources needed to make them are better spent elsewhere." You can make a sentence like this for any unit in the game. All units have counters and all units have uses in the right situations. Thats what the entire game is about. There are maybe a small handful of meme units that are borderline useless in the game that wouldn't really be missed. Towers are nowhere even close to making that list.

[@xavierklassen7849]

Insta clicked

[@Mexican00b]

i bet teutons are best

[@jussi3378]

Idk, Spanish at top 3 seems iffy when Koreans get the research for free and all the other bonuses. Just send more vills lmao

[@Ghostbellrei]

毛

[@craigwck7626]

Going to guess Turks are the best, extra range and discount on techs.

[@enestastan9897]

☪ ☪☪TURKS MENTIONED ☪ ☪☪

[@princeimrahil6557]

I remember the old days when they bypassed pierce armor and one-shotted rams and siege. Those were the days...

[@coopercross6123]

El Cid Campaign Count Berenger's fortress

[@sebastian_blair6685]

Insta clicked

[@telenelatelin8632]

Always

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

That Jadwiga scenario when, at release, the devs massively increased the cost of all stone structure except having forgotten bombard towers. What a bombard tower spam it was.

[@mattender8323]

I cheesed it instead. Converted Orange before I entered Vilnius. There was no timers.

[@Allexio173]

y e s walls of bombard towers

[@sartajali1665]

This is a random comment to boost the video

[@JordanDavidCarr]

Random reply to boost the video

[@uzairahmed4832]

When I played against the campaigns, they seemed so OP. Because of them, I moved at a snail's pace in the last game of the Joann of Arc campaign

[@jurgnobs1308]

was that a long time ago? vecause they used to do melee damage, so they wrecked rams and such

[@Fernybun]

​@@jurgnobs1308it makes sense, there's nothing more sharp than a blunt ball of lead

[@uzairahmed4832]

@@jurgnobs1308 I played it when Huns weren't a civ yet. Don't remember the year.

[@jurgnobs1308]

@@uzairahmed4832 yea, then they definitely were much, much stronger

[@SoWhat1221]

​@@Fernybun Not that it changes your point, but cannonballs were typically made of cast iron or (in the early days) stone.

[@adnivisorx5873]

A fun note, in the first version of Aoe2 conquerors (1.0) the koreans bonus did affect bombard towers

[@adnivisorx5873]

Extra range, making them honestly top 1 if you are just going for any version

[@BelialTnTn]

@@adnivisorx5873 + Siege Onagers that outranged castles, those were fun times.

[@Joakico]

Yeah Koreans were extremely OP. In AoC 1.0 they had +1 range in onager as team bonus, another +2 as tech. So they outranged castles and towers without bracer ( franks, celts, persians for example).

[@adnivisorx5873]

@@Joakico with + 2 range on UT makes their onagers outrange all non teuton castles, afler the nerf to +1 makes them to outrange just castles with no bracer, like celts.

[@mivapusa]

*Fires anti-siege cannon-balls* *Does 1 damage to rams*

[@dirkauditore8413]

Balance reasons

[@aryamaanborah7698]

It's been years since I last played AoE2 and I was genuinely amused when I saw the Byzantine Bombard Towers with their Flaming Cannon Trails.

[@krystofmichajlovfrancisko8224]

Its a recent change

[@GvF11]

Did the devs ever explain the rationale behind bbc's doing melee damage and bombard tower doing pierce? Especially when it comes to rams

[@tzeentch7118]

They used to do melee damage in AoK. Turns out, it made the fortifications basicaly immune to rams.

[@el_mr6439]

My guess is that they slowed down the game too much, since the only counters would be cannons and trebuchets, but the fisrt isn't aviable to all civs and the second would take a while dealing with them

[@IceSpoon]

@@tzeentch7118And everything in the game back then (except french paladins and trebuchets) was one-shotted.

[@teddyhaines6613]

@@IceSpoon And war elephants and siege rams by virtue of their HP would take more than one shot to go down.

[@bluedistortions]

It forces people to be less brain dead.

[@ad3z10]

Koreans main BBT weakness is exactly the same as the upside for Turk ones, outranging BBC in messy late game situations (the only time you really see them) is a huge advantage and means the only practical solution is Trebs most of the time. If you're against civs who lack BBC though I think it suddenly becomes a decent option, especially in some kind of Halb + Siege comp.

[@adnivisorx5873]

And if they are up against bbc, they make regular towers, what can reach them like turks

[@soonyo3430]

Elite jans have bonus against rams, bombard towers can range other bbcs and turk bbcs can easily snipe trebs, so yeah good luck if you let the turk player get to bombard towers

[@devinanni8117]

I dont think ive ever built one of these as a casual player. I need to build only towers for a game to correct this

[@AkshayKumarX]

Bombard towers were my jam back about 15 years ago, before the age of Internet in my dwelling, when I was just a wee lad with age of empires 2 the age of kings installed on my computer. Didn't even understand half the words or the options but had all the time in the world and full of wonderous curiosity. Watching aoe2 pro players with all the meta game aspects and the apm took all the magic out of it for me. Similar thing kinda happened with chess. But I plan to get start enjoying these games again and ignore all the fun sucking noise.

[@KCzz15]

In 4vs4 Amazon Tunnel games they were my jam, I'd either play Spanish or Portuguese and just spam 100+ trade carts, drive the price of stone at the market up to 1000 for 100 or so (or Feitorias) and spam ridiculous amounts of bombard towers that the opposing team simply had no hopes of dealing with. It was great.

[@TeutonicEmperor1198]

I wonder if there is any category where Teutons aren't honourably mentioned!

[@BlueShellshock]

I swear, after playing with Spanish Cannon Galleons, I'm fully convinced that Bombard towers could be so much better if they just had faster projectiles. Now, I'd also like to see the research removed and an armor-ignoring blast radius, BUT I will take a projectile speed upgrade if that's the only thing changed.

[@TheCoincidence]

The speed boost Arquebus granted to everything gunpowder in HD used to be alarmingly fast, including BBCs and BBTs. Wouldn't say it was particularly broken on the towers.

[@et34t34fdf]

​@@TheCoincidenceIts a shame they took away everything unique about the portuguese, they where never a top tier civ anyway, so why could they not have great BBTs?

[@daarom3472]

imo BBT should get reduced stats but also make them cheaper (50 gold?) and easier to tech into. Now it's pretty much only used for meme strats or in low elo BF games.

[@ayhanfedai5013]

thats why i love aoe3 bombards and artillery

[@jjforcebreaker]

NIce list. Always loved that unit since I saw Age of Kings for the first time. I wish it was played more. But competitive pace leaves little space for it, realistically speaking.

[@alexanderzhen5914]

Video suggestion: redo your what civ is best for you quiz. Its been years and needs an update!

[@lizardemperorkorbac4281]

At 8:28, you displayed the italian discount wrongly as a -133G, but the tech costs no gold but wood. So it should be -133w ;-)

[@Mrvercitti1648]

Bro if turk player has gold it feels impossible to defeat them

[@micahbush5397]

Why am I watching this when I never build Bombard Towers?

[@dennisjonker4804]

I thought Turks would be second and Portuguese first because 11 range + boosted accuracy seems better than 13 range and passively reducing accuracy/longer time for projectile to move before it hits. But I guess SOTL's points are good.

[@teddyhaines6613]

Extra range is almost always better than accuracy alone - just ask Britons. And that's even more true for towers and castles since they obviously can't get any closer to the enemy if they're out of range.

[@dennisjonker4804]

Interesting. I always did wonder how Britons can be so effective without Thumb Ring. That also reduces their rate of fire. @@teddyhaines6613

[@bluedistortions]

Portuguese should always be first, because they have infinite stone cheats. That's the number one limiting factor.

[@Progeusz]

Range is always superior.

[@et34t34fdf]

BBTs are affected by ballistics anyway, so Portuguese ones don't have any better accuracy, do they? A tiny increase in speed may make them a bit more accurate though.

[@MinyaKinar]

Wait... I don't recall THAT civ bonus from the Spanish... Since when did they get +20 gold for each technology researched? O.o

[@Boethion]

Its a relatively new bonus from a couple months ago.

[@MinyaKinar]

@@Boethion Shows how long it's been since I played last. Thanks for the reply so quick ^^

[@kikaioshin6700]

Since patch 81058 in fact

[@NiDe500]

Not to mention for Spanish: Supremacy villagers with Sappers are a credible threat to enemy rams. They aren’t frightened by a few accompanying skirmishers or archer units to the degree of most villagers, they’re very cheap, and they’re thus able to defend against one of the most practical counters to bombard towers they were just setting up (others being the somewhat less common bombard cannon, and the trebuchet which is expensive and even slower than a ram). Nasty surprise for civs who like to rely on the siege ram late game. In turn, the bombard tower is a credible threat to any paladins, heavy infantry, onagers, etc who think they can pick off builders uncontested. And using villagers this way saves on gold, affording more towers (on top of that lovely late game trade bonus). You could even use them for coastal defense, given that your own cannon galleons are utterly superior to everyone else’s (except -maybe- Turks for range, but the accuracy and speed of Spanish fire tends to dominate) and can protect the bombard towers while they make landings or galleon and fire ships floating coffins.

[@Jokie155]

I guess you could say that all the civs who didn't make the list... Bomb'd 'ard...

[@lekhakaananta5864]

I feel like this video over-weighs the effect of villager tankiness techs. By the time you're constructing bombard towers, you shouldn't have any problem affording extra villagers and replacing any that die. You should have already saturated your villager count for your economy so your TCs are free to replace any villagers you lose. At only 50 food they're as cheap as any other trash unit.

[@meanpie13]

They're just way too expensive and are rarely used at a high level. MBL is the only pro player who ever builds them. They need either a major price reduction or a huge buff. I think the Bombard Tower tech should be removed and they should be unlocked upon researching Chemistry.

[@Manouil_III]

They should be expensive, they need a buff tho.

[@dirkauditore8413]

They're fine, they're extremely powerful in black forest team games.

[@meanpie13]

@@dirkauditore8413, they're never used at a high level in black forest. Players just cut around the trees.

[@to_baldly_go]

Yessss! Would love a follow up tower civ video as well which includes not just tower buffs but also cheaper towers, ie Incas

[@Apoz]

My feitoria's take up 219 pop, I can only afford to build bombard towers.

[@inductivegrunt94]

Sometimes the best offense is a good defense. Byzantine Bombard Towers are my favorite with how durable they are with Turks being a close second with how long range they are.

[@fiddleriddlediddlediddle]

No one gonna mention how he depicts the Teutons with the wrong buildings?

[@ilikeitidont]

Super fun video!! I love Bonnard towers, so this feels like a personal treat!!

[@rockgamiasedes677]

5:43 nobody expects the Spanish inquisition.

[@Phoenix_1991]

As a Turk my heart started beating faster and faster the closer you got to your nr. 1 pick. So much so that I started to panick when you were at nr. 2 wondering if Turks were gonna be nr. 1 at all 😅. Was glad to see we made it to nr. 1 after all!

[@dirkauditore8413]

Usta!

[@jcrojasro]

Hello there great AoE II! I was wondering who is the Spirit of the Law for the Age of Empires III. I'm trying to find out which one may be the very best one to get information from...

[@bm8985]

I'd like a top ten castle civs just to know who has the best castles.

[@marceloromano8774]

Teutons ofc

[@close-upsteven895]

You have no idea how much I learned my English typing from building Bombard Towers. Back in the day, "rock on" only gave 1000 stones; I had to type every time it said not enough stone. My 6 year old self did not even know ctrl + v yet

[@nemes1s_aoe]

I didn't know that i needed to know this. Ty, oh stats lord.

[@Davtwan]

The Byzantines unique tech would be better if the shots very slightly past the opponent for optimal splash damage placement (or have a slightly bigger splash radius).

[@arcticbeak]

I had a feeling this list would mostly include AoK and AoC civilisations. Portuguese managed to sneak in though, good for you!

[@nErfEr308]

I still wish you could at least toggle switching them to melee damage for campaigns or vs the AI

[@OminousFlyer]

Top 5 fishing boat civs when?

[@kkdumbo8704]

A interaction that Sotl missed there 09:15 or an open question for me: What happens with the combination of multiple shots of the bombard tower if you have the splash damagde as byzantines. From my perspective there are multiple outcomes: a) every shot get splash damagde b) one shot gets splash damagde, the rest don`t get it c) something else happens maybe someone can help me there Beside that thanks for your videos, the effort and the entertainment. :)

[@RheaMainz]

Were one capable of being Teutons and Byzantines simultaneously, this would be more relevant. It still intrigues me!

[@Krbyfan1]

*Happy Tower noises*

[@Aimstein]

How about Burgundians?

[@Dave_The_Musical_Fisherman]

I still wish that bbt projectiles moved faster. I hate all the missed shots

[@et34t34fdf]

Portuguese were so much fun to play as, not anymore though.

[@Walgriff]

Is the music new..? I like it 🤩

[@sirius4k]

But.... bombard towers suck.

[@Adam-oh1ds]

Bombard towers were my favorite when I was a kid playing this game

[@arthurreede4478]

I always thought you could only get more cannonshots with Janissaries but now I really want a 10x shared civ matchup with Spanish Chinese and Teutons for rapid cannon towers

[@Jsneebs42]

I've recently posted a custom campaign titled "A Khaleesi's Journey" based on GOT. It's sort of a what could have happened had Khal Drogo lived. I've spent over 1000 hours on the scenario and I think it's complete. If you get the time and would give it a play through, let me know what you think. I would really appreciate it. Anyway I love the videos and appreciate the content.

[@harishsundar3409]

I believe SOTL made a mistake. Bombard towers don't get affected by ballistics. Only Portuguese do after Arquebus.

[@VRichardsn]

Fantastic video analysis. The only thing I am not really sold on are the Spanish and Portuguese. If we go by that villager logic, that should also put them in one of the top Castle civilisations... but it doesn't. As for the Feitoria... it is a long tradeoff to recoup all those costs.

[@martind5653]

What about Bohemian Houfnice, can it outrange Turkish Bombard Tower? I believe it used to have bigger range than bombard canon but it was nerf since or am I mixing and forgeting previous videos?

[@coreypatterson5827]

Still ludicrous that they nerfed bombard towers vs rams. By the time you get your first BT built, anyone who had any chance of beating you has easy trebuchet access. Having BTs also hard-countered by a baseline castle-age unit renders them all but worthless.

[@RobotShield]

Defensive towers only? Like 8tiles from TC and no further? Still being reach on the map but not overpowering

[@tomascostanzo3673]

What I dislike about bombard towers is the speed of the projectile they fire. Too slow, in my opinion. If it were like hand cannoneers' projectile they would be a lot more useful

[@imsmeagol911]

Byzantines have the imp discount too which really helps get to that chemistry power spike.

[@digimurtal]

is nerdy voice his _ MASSIVE knowledge.. I'm just here

[@Doomfrost]

The Bohemians actually have a pretty decent array of civ bonuses that could benefit their bombard towers. Stone and Stone shaft mining being free, blacksmiths and universities costing 100 wood less which allows you to get them up sooner while also reducing the wood impact to your eco, Hussite Reforms which gives massive gold savings that can be spent on bombard towers, Chemistry being available in the Castle Age means you can get that technology squared away so once you hit Imperial you can tech into Bombard Towers much earlier than your opponents. Fervor and Sanctity giving your villagers speed and health boosts which makes building forward towers a less stressful experience. Plus their unit lineup is pretty solid too.

[@sewersideproductions2606]

Ah yes, bombard towers. An insanely expensive castle-age-level tech only available in the late game.

[@HekkenDarkstorm]

Hang on, when did buildings start taking up population space? I thought only units did that?

[@stylesrj]

If Portugal has the Arquebus, is there a civ that has an Arquetrain?

[@erkocab]

another drawback to supplying stone through building a freitoria due to it using up population,

[@yonokhanman654]

Wait, that music at the end, I've heard it somewhere before... but I don't know where.

[@trancemusic8805]

which civs have best BBCs? are tortion engines bcc better than houfnice?

[@YourFBIagent118]

You forgot the Georgians. Their bombard towers are so good they dont even have them. And they dont even have them in the castle age none the less.