Saracen overview (AoE2)

[@tyranitararmaldo]

Perhaps Saracens should be described as a "Not heavy cavalry civ". As they do pretty much everything else very well.

[@chingamfong]

Saracen elephant let's go. Joke aside, no halberdier and only having generic champion = B+ infantry in my eyes

[@SimonFallheart]

they are also very good in killing heavy cavalry

[@mubashirulmoula1798]

No Heavy Cavalry and No Infantry civ.

[@Mietchannel]

Mamelukes are kind of like heavy cav

[@ashleythomas1988]

Worst knights

[@epicseadragon1692]

The reason why I like Saracens is that they have arguably one of the most flexibles eco bonuses of all civs... but it's something you have to use actively - hence, if you want to "learn the hard way" with no eco bonus, this non-passive eco bonsus combined with the wide open tech tree makes it one of the most suited civs to learn the game (along with Byzantines and Magyars) without falling into bad habits - as long as you make the "effort" of not using the market... (once you start doing so with saracens, you're spoiled 11) Ah, and question (though I could test myself): is the effect of Bimaristan stacking with Byz bonus??? That'd be very strong!

[@candrarazaka4351]

I think most camel civs are pretty tricky to play in general - such as Saracens and Gurjaras which are very strong Late Castle/Early Imp civ but you really needed to maximize their booming potential early on to field your camel units fast to weaken enemy knights. Don’t forget that they don’t have good knight-line in the late and that can’t be directly replaced by camels for raiding. And for your question, I’d like to help. I’ve tested it and the healing rate is almost 2-3x the normal speed. Great team combination as it saves about 40 secs the normal time which is significant. However, you are not obligated to team up with Byzantines though (for the history sake) 11.

[@Mexican00b]

i loved mayan obsidian arrows + sarracens bonus... it was amazing

[@franciasii2435]

...and really unfun to fight and had few counters.

[@Booklat1]

@@franciasii2435 don't mayans skirmishers also sorta kinda perform better against buildings with saracens ally + the extra javelin? I know the bonus doesn't apply to both javelins but there is 1 extra damage there.

[@Davtwan]

No gate stood up for long with that combo.

[@mdl2427]

Yeah, 40 longbows would do 160 damage every 2 seconds or 80/dps where as say 2 trabuchets do about 880 damage every 10 seconds or 88/dps which us pretty funny

[@AvelierPlays]

Wish all the older OG civs would get their own unique castles

[@Imperiused]

That would be dope

[@Neon-Lines]

Id pay for that 😂

[@YourFBIagent118]

In a way they are.

[@vallytine]

I'd argue those *are* their unique castles at this point. Who still has the arabian architecture castle left at this point? Saracens and Persians?

[@lollolrk]

Boom, right when it dropped. Always been a Saracen fan! Mamelukes are just.. so nice.

[@HarshJoshi1986]

A suggestion if I may @Spirit Of The Law. How about adding "Worst Match ups" for civilization overviews and possible strategies when facing those worst match ups?

[@tomascayul5728]

As a big saracen player the worst match up i would guess is mayans, the full archer spam and fast imp arbalest is hard to stop, eagles are also tricky to deal with.

[@HarshJoshi1986]

@@tomascayul5728 Thank you. I think Aztecs and Incas would be generally good against the Saracen as well since they counter cav. Eagles can both raid and demolish siege as if they were trash units. Still, my point here was to have SOTL mention the worst match ups for all civs when he does these in depth Civ Overview. He is already comparing Civ units (like he compared Saracen camels vs other civ camels in this video). I would like to hear his thoughts in the video itself telling us which civ it is favourable against, and against whom it is a bad choice. AoE2 is a tough game, and expert opinion is always good 😁

[@JSTM2000]

You weren't impressed by Saracen archer bonus 9 years ago because it used to apply to cav archers instead of foot archers before Definitive Edition.

[@BlueShellshock]

The Saracens are actually a bunch of fun if you're new and tend to overstock resources in the late game. Learning how to keep your resources low can be hard for newcomers, but the easy market makes it simple to get rid of overstocked resources or buy anything you're just short on. It's one of those civ bonuses that's a little addictive, and you miss it when you play other civs.

[@MrMarinus18]

I usually have that more with rushing civilizations. When I'm focusing on micromanaging my units tactically I often forget my economy and that I have a bunch of unspend resources.

[@RMOB]

2:09 Mad skill showed by that archer shooting backwards.

[@HarshJoshi1986]

Man, the archer to its left is doing a crazy curve shot, shooting at the target while looking at the camera. They have really spent the training time well, honing their accuracy on those target practice things at the archery range.

[@punbug4721]

"For the love of God, Ahmed, can you please just shoot normally?" Ahmed, holding and drawing his bow backwards while also standing backwards: "No."

[@redbasher636]

Watch out for spam comments, guys.

[@player_0184]

i chocked when i see +40 armor Gurjaras at 7:10

[@bundiderp5109]

teutonic camels

[@ryannathaniel9296]

Gurjaras be having Teutonic Csmels

[@MaximusLight]

You know in the original video I struggled to get a feeling for how to practically use the Saracens but I feel like this new video gives me a lot better impression of them. It's strange in a way because it's not new information but it somehow just makes more sense now.

[@demiserofd]

Their biggest bonus for Infantry is the Monk healing, as well. Infantry lose a lot of value with lost health since they have lower HP per unit and die off, leading to a snowball effect. Being able to keep them all topped up from one fight to the next can make them dramatically more powerful than otherwise.

[@lloydlejack-official]

I knew that Mameluke video meant there was an updated Sarracens overview on the way

[@dirkauditore8413]

yus

[@kemosonicfan123lbp]

Aw man, I asked for this a couple days back, glad it's finally here

[@irishguy0193]

Ive really grown to love Saracens and Magyars. I love covs with a wide tech tree, because beibg able to swap to a separate unit for a counter seems way better to me than having fewer offensive options. Saracens are flexible. They can still pull off a knight rush, then swap to camels, or do a hussar arbalest combo, or do a Feudal Archer rush on unconventional maps like arena or hideout. It's kind of a jack-of-all trades civ, but a master of none.

[@briannaherrington949]

These civ videos always drop when I least expect them, and I'm grateful every time

[@sanmitranaik]

Honey wake up, new spirit of the law video dropped.

[@jiemileng7745]

6:56 dang Gurjara camels +40 armor 🥲

[@4Hardy]

0:17 what a banger of a tune

[@catalinmarius3985]

Next Teutons/Italians overview? they are very old.

[@mitchellclapp1618]

My favorite civ in the game!

[@divicospower9112]

Great video as always. Now you should just add siege engineers with the dock picture when you show the tech tree as it affects canon galeons.

[@joshgreen1370]

Does the Byzantine team bonus affect the Saracens aura healing?

[@kikaioshin6700]

No, the aura healing Saracens get from Bimaristan is considered a completely different mechanic than the Monk's regular healing by the game, so the Byzantine Team bonus doesn't affect it, also if you use the Scenery Editor to give Bimaristan to the Teutons it will not have double the range.

[@fiable262626]

They stack but don’t multiply. The healing is best in the game with byz ally.

[@justmoddie5963]

Does the unique healing tech work with the allied Byzantines healing civ bonus?

[@yahm0n]

The passive healing remains the same, but the extra active healing is still nice.

[@justmoddie5963]

@@yahm0n So it doesn't double the tech. Sad.

[@yahm0n]

​@@justmoddie5963 The tech is pretty darn good on its own though. If someone isn't individual targeting for one shot, bimaristan can actually win you the game. Making something that is already strong a little bit stronger is still really good.

[@fiable262626]

@@justmoddie5963 Still heals as much as four monks.

[@jameshausler5259]

I always loved using them because they don't have too many obvious weak points. In the video from SOTL, I will say their biggest weak point is civilizations that specialize in seige.

[@fiable262626]

BBC, FU monks and FU hussar :0

[@DarkwynnTV]

@@fiable262626 yeah 11 I don't think they have any weakness vs siege whatsoever, would in fact argue the exact opposite.

[@jameshausler5259]

Turks celts and ethiopians can be tough and teutons​@DarkwynnTV

[@HiyokoSupiritto]

I find it interesting how Saracens and Persians are the only civs that both of their old unique techs were replaced by newer ones Lol I recently noticed the Imperial Camel here (17:57)

[@SuperCrazf]

Will the Karambitcoin value ever rebound back or will continue devaluing itself? Been watching these videos since around the time of the first civ overviews. Keep up the good work! Big fan of your vids

[@IschmarVI]

k a r a m b i t c o i n s t o n k s i n s h a m b l e s ?

[@eprjct]

Shout out to Tatoh for being one of the pioneers to develop Saracen strategies. He made Saracens one of the most unpredictable civilizations in Feudal age. The sneak attacks were so bad that many pro players actually groan at how pointless it is to scout a Saracen economy. The cheap market also makes it a hidden bonus to wall off your opponent. The extra tiles make it a much safer option to build than a regular stone wall.

[@ggg21201]

That's why Tatoh will always be my favorite, but tbf there were a lot of people including myself that were banging the drum for the unique market shenanigans you could do with them. Tatoh was just the guy that made it popular since he was the first pro to do it.

[@sashidharan1192]

My most favourite civ since conquers version.

[@MadnessTW]

With a good Monk civ as a backdrop, now would have been the time to advertise your religious study group "Spirit of the Lawd". What a missed opportunity.

[@doppelstarker5915]

A little question about goth tech "perfusion": are barracks working 100% faster or producing units 2* faster? Is this bonus speeding the research of unit upgrades in barracks?

[@peabodyscientific2082]

Would love to see a quick explainer on "longer lasting" civ bonuses, like the Goths' hunt bonus. I've always wondered how these work exactly. If a teammate is mining the same gold tile as a civ with longer lasting gold, is there more gold for them too?

[@EvilDoresh]

Afaik the villagers are effectively creating resources out of thin air. This means the bonus only works on _your own_ villagers, since the _actual_ amount of resources left isn't increased or anything. So in the case of the Goth's "Hunt last 20% longer" bonus, every 5th point of food carved out of an animal does _not_ decrease the amount of food left on the animal.

[@peabodyscientific2082]

@@EvilDoresh ahh that makes sense. I did notice the amount of food showing on the boars when playing Goths didn't change, so that could explain it. It looks like the Malian's gold mining bonus was changed to work that way, I wonder if that's because initially teammates were hacking large resource piles?

[@EvilDoresh]

@@peabodyscientific2082 I assume adjusting the amount of resources directly would open the gates for exploits.

[@Kaletris]

@@peabodyscientific2082 There was no hacking whatsoever. Malian bonus effect is between the Mayan and Turk goldmine bonus. Takes less resource from goldmine (it takes less than one, the game calculates decimals despite not showing) and the villager drops off more than it was carrying.

[@coolguyfrenchfry]

Hey Spirit, have you ever done a video about "dream teams", or ideal unit/army compositions in team games? If not, it would be fun to see what you think are some of the strongest army compositions that you can't get in 1v1 and your thoughts. (ex: Bohemians and Italians for houfnice + Genoese crossbow, or something like that)

[@alexandreclemente6390]

Are the players markets conected, does buying /selling afect the other players market?

[@fiable262626]

Market prices (before tax) is shared by all. So if Saracens buys lots of food the other players can sell their food for better prices

[@gauravminz8337]

Fun fact: The first unique tech, Bimaristan, translates to "Land of the sick"

[@HarshJoshi1986]

True. Bimaar = sick / ill (Bimaari being sickness / illness). -stan or -istan is a Persian suffix indicating land or location. So Bimaristan is the place / location of the sick where these AoE Monks perform mass healing 😀

[@TehG8Penguin]

Or you could more loosely translate it as 'hospital'. Which what the tech is referring to: The early development of hospitals in the Islamic world.

[@DuyLe-is9py]

It’s hilarious to think that combination between Camel and Cav archer isn’t Camel archer but a sword-throwing camel

[@lycanthewerewolf6801]

I can't express how much I needed to hear that intro music again.

[@jotfohm4644]

Guys, how would you feel if for Saracens, the bouns of -100 wood cost on Markets is replaced/(or added on top of it) for that the first market is already pre-built by the start of the game? (after the TC in nomad games)

[@fiable262626]

Dark age market would be crazy

[@Edelweiss1102]

Honestly I think Sarazens might be the civ who has the most viable options in most stages of the game. It's truly staggering: - Ranger: You have a full Archery Range with Archers and Skirms dealing extra damage against buildings. - Infantry: Thy have FU Champs + Pikes. Missing Halbs hurts a bit, but you got amazing Camels and Pikes can do the job if needed. - Stable: FU Hussars and Camels with extra HP, and an amazing Cav UT. Capping out at knight isn't amazing, but at least you have the options unlike Meso and some Asian civs and with Imp ugrades, they still beat anything that isn't at least FU Cavalier. - Monastery: FU Monks + Amazing UT on top of it. - Siege: Siege Ram, Siege Onager, BBC and Trebs with SIege Engineers and Counterweights are amazing - Dock: Faster firing Galleys and better transportships are amazing, while lacking fast fire ship and shipwright hurts a bit - Trash: They have everything except Halbs In terms of options, only Byzantines and Spanish have even more options. And the Byzs lack a bunch of key techs like blast furnace, bloodlines or siege engineers while the Spanish lack one cruciual in Crossbows and have no military bonus outside of faster firing gunpowder units.

[@Progeusz]

Spirit of the Law didn't make a pun website in this episode.

[@IschmarVI]

"the fastest way to get food is to mine stone" capitalism explained

[@Nysyarc]

Seeing that line-up of Saracen units at 18:10 that all get full post-Imp upgrades is the best visual to show just how impressively diverse their tech tree is. I feel like not having a Dark Age eco bonus and not really having a super strong A+ category are what hold them back a bit competitively, but they're very fun to play and allow you to mix up what you do in the late game from time to time without having to change civs if you like to pick a favorite civ for comfort.

[@Storm-1.]

11:57 why is there a imperial camel?

[@bigbroarivus]

I have fond memories with Saracens, especially when some governor in Cairo decide to get Frank team bonus, and the everyone favourite quotes about crusader attacking their trade routes

[@RolfReibach]

Back in my schooldays I only played Saracens on AOC. It was by far my favorite civ with all their strong options and the coolest unique unit in the game - back than op. Now, after the balance patches, I like them even better!

[@Alron112]

I don't even play AoE2 anymore. Listening to Spirit of the Law's voice is so relaxing he could easily have an ASMR channel with hundreds of thousands of views.

[@BrownFoxWarrior]

Saracen of the Law

[@cacobutignol8516]

Hello again my fellow aoe2 players whom enjoy the warm voice of our wiseman Spirit of the Law

[@Dimiterer]

18:00 ah yes, the infamous saracen 200 hp imperial camels, love to see that

[@hatimzeineddine8723]

not having shipwright does suck

[@inductivegrunt94]

Sarecens are really underrated win-rate wise. Good and useful bonuses and techs, strong camels, and a fun unique unit. I struggled a bit to understand them in the campaign, being my one of my first campaign and first camel civ, but I got better and now understand just how good Sarecens are.

[@Jokie155]

I've just been replaying their campaign, and holy hell Horns of Hattin is just awful for taking away so many of their best strengths. Not at all surprised it's a poor intro to them.

[@lightworker2956]

Generally speaking, a civ that does one thing really well has good win-rates, because they're straightforward to play for newish players (eg Franks). Whereas you need to be pretty experienced to fully leverage the advantage of being flexible.

[@robertlewis6915]

7:15 I didn't know Gurjaras had +40 armor

[@StuartFordyce1]

Best intro ever

[@StuartFordyce1]

song

[@DCdabest]

Saracens have to be up there amongst other contenders for "Best Civ in the game". It's impossible to have a real clear candidate for that position but they do a lot of different things very competently and personally I love using the Market to get that power boost when I need it to pump out units or age up on time.

[@ninjatunagaming4817]

As a completely noob content creator, It gives me hope to see Spirit of the Law still making AOE content in 2024! Thanks for the content as always man and hope you gave a great 2024.

[@EngPheniks]

Saracen villagers hunting boar for food. I never thought of it. In the predominantly Muslim civilization, that certainly would be haram. But who cares? It's a video game 🤭

[@mitchellclapp1618]

Do a video comparing new unique tech to herbal medicine. Would love to see that as you would always have a castle if you have the tech.

[@annominous826]

I'm sure the Saracens' counterweight onagers and counterweight trebuchets will indeed benefit from the Counterweights tech. Frankly, I'm more wondering how everyone else manages to have those units be effective without.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

And to think I was really frustrated on the Saladin campaign's late stages. Dang, these guys were too flexible for my own good.

[@holdforth724]

There's a stupidly ridiculous 6 archery range build order u can do with 30 pop saracens i got it with it yesterday by some Zagesi dude.

[@ageofstrange657]

Would be cool if Saracens got something like a fortified church, or you could just call them mosques.

[@RobinTheBot]

Saracen AOE monks are better than advertised, as they effectively also have an increased healing range... Simply micro damaged units back and when the monks heal them at Max range they will get "splash" healing 5 squares ahead. Love them

[@ryoumakoushiro7447]

Seems I've said this way back then in one of SoTL's old video, but ah well... The market bonus from market actually made me played Saracens like the recent Abbasid (no boar hunting), and it's kinda fun playing like that because I don't need to go for the usual tactics, the old boar rush kinda makes me bored and stressed out, especially since I can't micro very well

[@Bzhydack]

I think Saracens should loss Herbal Medicine, due to stronger monks. Their bonus is much stronger than Byz one, and Byz dont have Herbal Medicine.

[@TheKobasen]

He finally said it. 🥲 Saracens team bonus is a solid bonus.

[@duke_aki]

Is the monk's passive healing affected by other civ bonuses, like extended range (Teutons) and healing rate (Byzantines)?

[@robdenini6972]

If Saracens and Byzantines weren't such bitter enemies throughout the middle ages we'd have some unbelievably efficient hospitals today

[@picanchilada]

The Mameluke at 3:20 : " Look at those 2 other markets .. How expensive ! I am simply glad that we don't do business like that 😀🎊"

[@obesechicken13]

Wow thats a lot of buffs. Aoe monk healing, +2 bonus vs buildings, memeluke armor class, and market cost were all not thing on hd's release iirc

[@ryanforgo3500]

you still have not touched on the market bonus in the sense of how you can focus wood, or wood and stone. in terms of eco upgrades and then you would generating gold/food much faster than any other civ by selling the high collection rate wood/stone. in other words, if we assume that the collection rate of wood is at fuedal / castle "especially if you fast castle" you are able to sell wood at such a good rate compared to collection ratio compared to upgraded gold. this is important in my opinion because, for one, we can't really get all eco upgrades early. 2nd, defensively speaking this makes it very hard for anyone to cause any damage to you, especially if you are sticking to wood only. but also since you abused stone upgrade to generate gold fast, you can also stick to stone a little longer to build a tower or a castle if needed, or even an offensive castle drop. and for two the rss gained from villager worktime is a huge chunk it makes other team bonuses look like a joke "until prices in market drop low enough ofc". my rule of thumb for example is, if i fast castle and with castle age wood upgrade, selling wood generates more gold than mining gold down until wood price in market falls down to something like 70 before it becomes 1 : 1. now again, this is without getting gold upgrade, in which case if you have feudal gold upgrade you can only sell wood down to 80ish in market price. but the point stands which is you would be safer to focus one rss, and you would make more units early castle if you don't have to build a mining camp and upgrade gold eco which we rarely ever do in feudal and early castle i assume. ofc and eventually one needs to build up his strategy to slowly transition into those rss before prices hit the ground. but this bonus if used this way is not an early game bonus only, but also a late game bonus where your gold on the map will be lasting much longer and where your opponent will never be able to sell wood or stone for a fair price. especially later when you start reselling the food you bought at a very high price for food where you just get back most the gold u spent there. ending up in a situation where most of the wood and stone u sold is pure gold "lasting longer" as if you have 3k-5k extra gold at the end game.

[@mdoubleyou644]

When the UT Bimaristan cames out, I thought this is the UT with the highest potential, and I found nearly nothing about this in pro Videos ....

[@elliejohnson2786]

7:04 I wasn't aware gurjaras got +40 armour. That's news to me.

[@Physiker17]

@7:00 you show the Gurjaras' camels to have +40 Armor, that can be right... right?

[@josephdedrick9337]

Hadn't really looked at this before but the Saracens heavy camels appear to be the dromedary camels while the mamelukes appear to be on bactrian camels. Bactrian camels wild range gets the closest to the Saracens in the georgia area, so it seems odd they'd be mounted on camels not from there area of influence.

[@edmis90]

Mamelukes not being countered by Skirmishers feels wrong?

[@fiable262626]

They have their own subreddit: r/AoE_Saracens

[@aniruddhbhatkal1834]

It's really cool that the devs doubled down on what was once a meme team bonus, and fixed it, rather than come up with new ones as they often do.

[@banna_aton]

This was always one of my favorite civs along with Mongols. Also where I got the name I use banna' aton lol

[@daheadsmiter2052]

I love that you brought back the guitar montage.

[@zomorion9183]

Ah, the nostalgia. Hope we eventually get overviews for all the older civs.

[@JacoDeltaco]

fast question are you ever going to do a other video on the historical reason behind civilisation bonus/unit ect I know it a lot of work but it could be a good opportunit for a colab with a history channel

[@justincronkright5025]

Best walling civ too... in those community games the Saracens player should just build walls of markets around as many resources and trade with everyone, whilst building up their forces.

[@sonwig5186]

I think the mamelukes would be better represented riding horses rather than camels.

[@oldgamesplayer2220]

Am i wrong but did gujaras camel got +40 armor at 6:58 as civ bonus?

[@dragonplus12]

create a playlist for alll of this overview

[@muhammadabdullahy9281]

Is that really mameluke throw dagger 🗡️ in battle?

[@GossAug]

Am I the only one that thinks the ranged melee units are all just ugly?

[@ampuh214]

i watch this again after knowing that Hoang use this civ lately

[@cambac-pro]

7:05 crazy gurjaras +40 armor

[@ashleythomas1988]

Armor?¿

[@hbarudi]

Looks like the cavalry bonus damage vs camels for mamlukes is removed on purpose to nerf them in that regard given that you can hit and run everything except teutonic knights. But sarecens have other things to respond to such opponents...

[@notthedroidsyourelookingfo4026]

No side hustle anymore? That was the highlight!

[@alrafa1598]

your voice didn't change much over 9 years.

[@jamesmattila-hine1133]

the Gurjaras get a Plus 40 armour that got to be a mistake, please tell me this is a mistake

[@s0uldr4ke]

"I wasn't too impressed by this" he said while I remember all the time old SotL called bad civilization bonuses "bad but not as useless as the Saracens team bonus". That is some understatement right there ;)

[@fluffydestroyer8336]

as a kid the mameluke was one of my two favourite units because its name sounded like marmelade. my other favourite was the teutonic knight cuz it looks (and behaves) like darth vader

[@floriankulik7965]

The Gurharas heavy camel got a +40 Armour bonus. Sounds a bit much.

[@floriankulik7965]

At 7:12

[@GatochanBolivia]

I dont play aoe2, but i like your vids and INTRO :3 thanks bro, regards. (i used to play aoe2 like 3,4 years ago... played it also when i was 13 XD)

[@TheSpiritedFendron]

called it ;)

[@IreeduiDavaasuren]

You should do a Mongols overview!