What if Onagers Had BALLISTICS?

We investigate what it would be like if Mangonel-line units gained the ability to track moving units (not necessarily via the Ballistics Technology).
#aoe2 #ageofempires #siege

[@yuuya5985]

on the other hand, something like 15% faster projectile speed for all units seems like a nice civ bonus

[@theshi3152]

What another Age of empires Spirit of the Law type Channel! hell yea I'm in!

[@MatheusAlves-nc6iz]

There should be a bonus or tech that makes your mangonels deal less damage to your own units, kinda like siege tanks in Wings of Liberty campaign for SC 2

[@dinoson7007]

I think ballistics will make mangonel alot more deadly at higher level. It is not simply an alternative to micro, but to combine both. It depends on micro capability but think of it as if someone trying to micro 2 groups of mangonel at the same time and atk ground at 2 spots instead of a big group atk ground in 1 spot. You can let half of the mangonel to just target and micro the other half, effectively creating more strike zones which is hard to maneuver.

[@chingamfong]

Very interesting and a lot of potential. I think locking behind a castle age UT is suitable. Sidenote: I like your new mic/voice setup

[@AdmiralWololo]

Thanks! It was a little rough on the first two narrated videos I did, but it has definitely improved since then.

[@hellpunch9414]

I think the reason they chose to not give ballistics in the original game is due to the fact that mangonel line unit attacks have a massive return for the resource invested already in potential. This potential will not always realize but will definitely increase drastically if they get ballistics.

[@huunghianguyen2027]

tbf, we have ballistic scorp, ballistic bbc already. It seem ok to follow that recipe, i think it is fine for imperial tech and aiming for post-imp usage rather than early imp/castle age. So like giving the same treatment as arquebus or torsion engine with cost adjust in between is my opinion

[@AdmiralWololo]

Sounds like a reasonable balance, probably cheaper than those techs as it only affects one unit type.

[@pandaprewmaster325]

It will be fun to see this being implemented for sometime just make ballistics effect the mangonel line and see how it goes things on paper may be different to how they actually fare on ground

[@ville4090]

It's broken as hell. I've seen it first hand in AoE 1 where Catapults are affected by Ballistics. They melt everything once massed and screened by Hoplites.

[@pandaprewmaster325]

@@ville4090 huh I didn't know they were effected by it in aoe1 well thats new , now now aoe2 balance differs greatly from that of aoe1 so maybe its can be different

[@AdmiralWololo]

@@ville4090 I think that's more a factor of AoE1 Heavy Catapults being way stronger than AoE2 Siege Onagers. They have 2x the HP and much more range.

[@vongola8902]

I agree with it will be too op in castle age but would be okay in other situation. Also one thing is AI onagers would be so scary but player onager still can't hit AI's units as you want

[@benedictjajo]

Will not be fun when your 60 archers get one shotted 😂

[@marcuspontius3967]

What do you say about this AI onager micro? kzbin.info/www/bejne/sGO4nXV7fM2IhcU I think the scripter didn't fully implement this into his AI Immortal, but it's never the less a pretty tough one. The Viper played vs it as well. (the haystacks are just visual objects to see the target area)

[@ville4090]

What if Supplies swap places with Gambesons in the tech tree and reworked to "reduce infantry population space to ½"?

[@ChrisNihilus]

What if the civ gets the Ballistic Onagers but not the Siege Onagers upgrade? I think it would be an interesting twist on late game siege.

[@AdmiralWololo]

Yeah I definitely like the idea of missing the final unit upgrade but having other strong advantages (for Onagers and other units). Definitely a good fallback on the off chance the ability was too strong.

[@vladimirmarkovnikov8729]

1:20 dude this is lit! How'd you do that? Btw congratulations! You have earned a new subscriber

[@AdmiralWololo]

Hey, thank you! In this case I gave the projectiles "unit" behavior, so that they would automatically seek out enemies and course correct to intercept them (and then explode of course)

[@vladimirmarkovnikov8729]

Are you available on discord? I would like to know it all😅

[@AdmiralWololo]

@@vladimirmarkovnikov8729 I'm not on discord rn, but it would be a good idea to migrate over there before long

[@vladimirmarkovnikov8729]

@@AdmiralWololo ahh, i see. When you happen to do that, please do let us know in the description panel. Because you have got some nifty skills sir! And I want to know them so that I can make my custom scenarios a lot better😀

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

Attack ground for petards feel utterly wasteful. Though and interesting bonus for them would be : petards can turn invisible when immobile. Which would allow using them as minefields. (To avoid excessive cheese to avoid defeat, invisible petards wouldn't count toward the minimum unit limit to stay ingame)

[@AdmiralWololo]

Yes, the attack ground for petards is very much a joke

[@RennieAsh]

So if your final unit, petard stops walking then you get defeated? Lol

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

@@RennieAsh maybe need an active command to enter "ambush mode"

[@SteveNoBeard]

Auto micro, auto macro auto build, lets just auto play! Absolute bop, god bless ol Emm Bee

[@caprasss]

I can argue that even though it is a different game, you can see the efect of guided mangonel in AOE4. There the projectile is tracking there... For that to work they balanced the unit around that... but I still don't really like it. It skews the balance a lot in the favour of the mangonel user, making dodging a lot harder, since you have to actually go for a split sacrifice - more akin to starcraft micro... I would say that it could be interesting to try balistics on mangonel as a late game bonus, as that still lets you dodge (not being tracking) and it could make it more viable for low skill players. Another tangent is that in AOE4 is that you have a guaranteed long range counter to it. This is not the case in AoE 2, as not everyone has access to bombards. Making it harder for low skill players to counter them.

[@sourathghosh5170]

I love the idea and honestly dont even mind if it ends up being overpowered for a few months!!

[@AdmiralWololo]

That's the spirit! You have the makings of a true game developer

[@RennieAsh]

How odd, in the Iron Age they knew how to predict fire stones ;--))

[@AdmiralWololo]

Secrets of the ancients, lost to time along with 200 HP and 30+7 Attack infantry.

[@L3monsta]

Hi Admiral, I have a suggestion for a video: if you could select two civilizations at the beginning of the game and combine all their bonuses, which would result in the most broken combinations?

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

Ultimate douche civ : Persians + Cumans

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

Ultimate "forum drop troll" civ : Persians + Cumans. Do what Persians are famour for, then double down on that

[@abyssalblade7244]

Khmer+malay. Being knight rushed in your late dark age😂

[@AdmiralWololo]

I've had some similar ideas and will do something like this, although will probably start off more simply (e.g. 1 Civ's UU + Another Civ's Bonus). 2 Full Civs combined would be interesting, but it would also be a very long video if I considered all combinations

[@L3monsta]

@@AdmiralWololo oh for sure considering all combinations would be much too much. I was only really expecting a highlight of a small handful of combinations

[@thomasfplm]

But, what about ballistics trebuchet?

[@nswordsn4249]

Petard attack ground is like going to destination and press delete, shouldn't be much of a hassle to implement

[@erikdw8379]

I'm also curious on how this would effect A.I players like in campaigns, where their units would always automatically try to dodge the shot as soon as it's fired, which makes using Onagers there quite different compared to multiplayer. If the Onager with Ballistics were to just shoot in the direction of where the enemy unit was headed before the shot was fired then it could potentially be even worse since they'd be even further away from the target area by going in the opposite area when the shot is fired. Of course they could also continue moving in the same direction to "dodge" the shot, making it actually hit them. So it would be kinda hit or miss (haha) in A.I situations. One solution to this would be for the Ballistics Onager to predict where the enemy unit would go after the shot is fired, so it would for example shoot behind the enemy unit since that's where they would go if the Onager fired its shot and didn't have Ballistics. I think that would remove a lot of the frustrations I have with them in campaigns at least

[@AdmiralWololo]

That's a fair point. The AI is weird in that it can have crazy micro for dodging projectiles, but doesn't use attack ground on its siege at all. TBH it might be better if all but the Hard/Extreme AIs didn't dodge micro so much.

[@bhamchoubey]

How about mangonel line along with getting affected by ballistics, also dont do any friendly fire damage?

[@AdmiralWololo]

That would instantly become every new player's favorite siege bonus lol. I'd start with reduced damage, maybe 1/2 from friendly fire before going all the way.

[@jesusrubiomaldonado27]

AoE I dramatic vibes

[@RennieAsh]

Heavy horse archer running through catapult infested enemy town , they wreck half their town and units trying to hit it while you dodge

[@madmusic341]

I almost never use onagers but I think they would be OP if you gave them perfect accuracy, archers would become almost useless in imperial age, I don't play online but I can defeat the extreme ai and they currently aren't able to make good use of them against me but with this they would destroy my archers lol.

[@hosykamikaze3626]

game desperately needs petard civs and bonuses

[@benkowalski-dv5yq]

30 seconds into the video you see a wolf tech logo, anybody know what that does?

[@DanielFewchuk]

Apparently it's Hunting Dogs: Hunting Dogs was a technology in the mod Age of Empires II: Forgotten Empires that could be researched at the Mill. Once researched, Hunters and Fishermen worked 25% faster.

[@et34t34fdf]

Let's auto-everything!

[@AdmiralWololo]

Not MBL confirmed!

[@joaocesteil51]

remove the wood discount from koreans and give them this one!

[@bristleback3614]

Well the Incas slings has ballistic so why not?

[@theshi3152]

For the Algorithm!

[@AdmiralWololo]

I (and the algorithm) accept this offering

[@kgb2753]

What if monks didn't have ballistics?

[@AdmiralWololo]

I don't know whether Science has advanced to the point of being able to tackle that question...

[@NikitaOnline17]

Catapults in the ROR dlc benefit from ballistics and tbh I absolutely hate it. They're extremely oppressive especially to infantry (and they have a huge blast radius) and it's the #1 thing that kinda ruined it for me

[@AdmiralWololo]

Maybe it's too much, but TBH I think that's mostly a factor of RoR Catapults being way stronger than AoE2 Siege Onagers...IIRC they have like 2X the HP and +5 range or something...That kind of unit would be broken in AoE2 with or without ballistics.

[@Spicy_wiener]

BROKEN, but give it to scorpions

[@MahazonaTiN]

Romans already get it

[@Spicy_wiener]

@@MahazonaTiN Yes, but they all should

[@incaseofimportantnegotiations]

"micro" is a bad excuse for terrible game design

[@incaseofimportantnegotiations]

onagers are absolute garbage in pve