At this point I'm hoping they keep releasing more AoE2 content just so that we keep getting new SotL content.

I used Spirit of the Lure, and it increased my fishing ships' efficiency by 15%. Would definitely recommend for the great value on a mid game eco.

Fereters also make Condottiero 110hp which is quite awesome too if you have Italian ally and need to fight mass gunpowder units

Kind of weird to think of Armenia as a naval civilization when it is currently landlocked (yeah, I know medieval borders were different).

+2 line of sight on infantry team bonus is a great boost to any American civs you are allied with, since it boosts eagle warriors. +2 line of sight on your scout unit is nothing to sniff at.

Armenians are my new fav civ, ive been playing them more so than my main civs(Sicilians, Turks, and Malay)

I understand why their unique tech makes their soldiers better at fighting. If someone gave me a Ferret I would fight very hard to protect it.

Oh, the intro. Missed that so much

Yes! The intro is back! 😍

1:20 - The vision range working on their priests when grabbing relics is actually I think the overall #1 use of this bonus... since it won't affect your monks, but the warriour priests.

Legit always wait intensely and enjoy watching these. Still going strong SOTL 💪

A straight shooting Archer that hits like a truck and wears a cape. What more could you want in a unique unit?!

The issue of how to balance infantry in AoE2 has been tickling my brain for a while. I've been wanting to lean into the history aspect, looking at why armies were constructed the way that they were. In short, infantry where the simplest troops to field. Easier to train and equip than others. Archers and cavalry, while common, would have been had issues massing in any number, along with natural issues of rough terrain for cavalry and bad weather and cover being rough for archers. What this comes down to mechanically is that I feel like infantry should be more tanky and or more disposable with faster creation times. With how cavalry and archers can out maneuver infantry, infantry just need to be able to take the hits, either with stats or numbers, to be able to get to the target and take it out. More of an assault unit that can take out a base. I feel like a full army of heavy infantry should be very hard to stop, should be easier to get than archers or cavalry, and should be able to level bases (which I know they already can with their bonus against buildings, so I think they are already going in that direction)

Team bonus is great for spearmen, to keep an eye out for scouts

I'd argue that Warrior Priests *do* have the ability to convert... ... but they also automatically count the target as if they had Heresy.

That transition to the fishing equipment ad was smooth as butter :D

I recently got into AoE2 and these videos have been incredibly helpful. Plus the older ones that are like build order and unit breakdowns. Thanks SOTL!

The team bonus could be awesome for the Mesoamerican civs for scouting! Maybe it's time for an update on the best scouts video. ;)

I think what the warrior monks really need is a button that switches between prioritizing attacking and healing. Since if I remember correctly, you mentioned that they always prioritize attacking

I get a lot of value using a Briton Longbow/Treb strategy. Guard trebuches with Composite Bowmen, and guard the bowmen with Warrior Priests. It's a really tough nut to crack, since all the stuff you typically want to kill monks with are melee units with high pierce armor, and your bowmen cut those down fast.

I think what I like about Armenians is that you can early tech, and get ahead of imperial champions of other civs. Two handed is quite good upgrade. Timing wise, can work out really well. I used the monks on five in comb at, 5 in stand ground, they do prefer healing in this state over attacking.. and really help cavalry front lines, as the larger hp units can be healed incredibly fast...

Okay, one more video. Bedtime can wait.

+2 LOS for the eagle scouts in TG sounds nice. Do the Warrior Monks benefit from the Byzantines' team bonus?

Excellent video as always!

I don't even play this game or own it but damn your videos are good. Always an instant watch if I catch them

it would be nice a persians overview for the new rework

Keep up the great content! We love you 💞

I hope they add heavy cav archer and maybe even paladins for them. They used quite a bit of heavy cavalry I think

Could you perhaps make a video about how many land units you have to hit with demolition ships for it to be cost-effective? You have made such an analysis about petards, concluding that they are most of the time not cost-effective. However, demolition ships have much higher attack and a larger blast radius (especially the armenian ones), making it easier to pay back their cost when attacking bunched up land units in shallows. I know it's a situation restricted to certain maps, but I think if you can pull it off on a hybrid map, it can be highly cost-effective. You don't have to hit a lot of, for example, trebuchets, to be cost-effective with demo ships. Heavy demolition ships take down a generic trebuchet in two hits, but cost less than half of a trebuchet, so that's cost-effective even if only one trebuchet is hit per demo ship. With some other units, for example gold-intensive infantry or archers, I'm certain you can easily get some great value out of demo ships as well. What I can't estimate is if heavy demo ships would be a valid anti-trash unit with bottomed out market prices. ... in addition to possible cost-effectiveness, there's also the aspect of being able to destroy an enemy army without risking most of your own, either because you are rebuilding your forces and need more time, or because you have an army and plan to attack once you've blown up the enemy's forces. This aspect however is difficult to quantify.

Spirit of the Law strikes again. Love it.

Fun Fact:- For an extra bit of trivia, the Armenian Composite Bowman doesn't just seem to be wielding a composite bow (which refers to the materials the bow is made of), but also a reflex bow (which refers to the shape of the bow). Despite the unit being on foot, reflex bows are most well known for being used by steppe nomad horse archers, like the infamous Mongols. In fact the Mangudai should also be a composite bowman! The advantage of both the make and shape is that you can get a lot of power from a fairly compact bow, making it ideal for use on horseback. For foot archery longbows are perfectly viable, and also much easier to make.

A big thing rarely mentioned is that the arrows fly straight and not in an arc, meaning that even without ballistics you hit enemies walking towards you, where normal arches overshoot.

Yeah you brought back your intro!

I always thought the team bonus would be for the incas, but I like the Armenians have it

I don't believe in ASMR. "Hey guys, Spirit of the Law here..." I feel so serene.

2hs do way better than just trading evenly with knights. Even longswords can do that; 2hs absolutely dominate them. The only problem is that, with so many more units, it's hard to get them all to engage in a timely manner. But you can compensate for that with a little formation micro. For example, just patrolling 20 longswords into 10 knights leads to a knight victory, if you split just before contact and THEN patrol in, you win instead.

The unique units feel quite complimentary in certain compositions. I'm curious to see how the Fereters tech can enhance a warrior monk/champion push, or how well composite bowmen can do picking off high pierce armour targets to protect a gang of arbalesters.

3:05 Great job pun master !

I love that intro

the mule cart wall in standby position with the good bows and mangonels ;)

I love those square space adds.

That might be the best ad lead in that I've ever seen.

You are awesome. Best channel by far

I don’t know if you already have but you should make a video on build orders for each civ or showing how you would play each civ that would be cool too

One of the bonuses of having an archer unique at castle means you can fill it with archers to defend your civ. Their fast spawn rate is also a boon for this play. So if they manage to break a castle, you have a fun little surprise waiting for them :)

I have had some success with Armenians on flank and going archers in team games, so far. Their eco gets going pretty quickly because of the extra bonus from the mule carts, and if you are attacked early on you can move your lumberjacks/miners to another spot without losing resources on building a new camp. I feel like Georgians are a bit better for pocket, as the eco boost from the Georgian Fortified Church helps you boom more easily.

great stuff :-)

nice video!

I havent played aoe 2 in over 10 years and still watch every Spirit of the law Video 😅

wish there were custom campaigns for the Armenians -- loved those composite archers!

Thanks for the video. Is the Roman one still coming?

Spirit of the Law!

The squarespace side jobs are great

Tatoh probably loves this civ.

I like the idea of using the mule carts to steal secondary gold early on. kinda cheeky but the mule cart makes it more possible

i came here only for Spirit of the Lure, learned about some game too! 😛

Great vid. Does the free relic counts for relic victory ? If so that could be huge

Tatoh's new favorite civ

Henrikh Mkhitaryan will absolutely love this video.

I'm curious how do you get your footage? Is it from MP game replays featuring the civ you're talking about or do you set it all up with an editor?

@spiritofthelaw One video I would love to see is one on when is fishing worth it. There is a lot of depth that goes into it: how many fish makes it worthwhile to take? When is the optimal redocking? If you have a pond with no lakes, when (if ever) should you do fish traps (especially if Malians)? If you have a pond with shore fish, does it make sense to make a dock to then use villagers to collect the shore fish in order to fish trap later? Finally, can you do the math for the Coastal Mountain (the TTL map) for how much should one prioritize the fish there (i.e. after how many warships would it have been better to have ignored water)? Thanks :)

longswords in feudal is so nice I feel like I would get them in the situations other civs would go M@A into archers, but instead of wasting resources in a whole archery range and archer upgrades I could just go straight into more M@A and the longsword upgrade. You don't even need many of them, starting with 5 and adding a few more already feels fairly strong early feudal. Additionaly, since their archers are fairly useable, you can never really know for a fact if an armenian opponent is going archers or only infantry in early feudal

Something that occurs to me is that Armenians would probably pair particularly well with the American civs with that team bonus. That way, at least one team member will have better scouting, and I'd think that this team bonus is meant to be an infantry equivalent to the Mongols' bonus to Scout Cavalry LoS. I'm curious on your thoughts about that, personally.

despeeeeeet

Mule cart bonus is now 40%, this now makes them a fairly powerful eco civ.

This man and his side hustle puns 😂

Possibly the best Ring nothing civ

yaaaaaaa!

More new content! Love it! Now all we need is a Dutch Republic faction with a strong navy and unique unit: watergeus and unique ship unit (which can act as a trade ship and combat vassal in one). Probably also a unique building 'bank' which replaces the market and gives a gold boost.

I feel like the Georgians with the Monaspa are busted, but the Armenians feel relatively fair - they have some great options and also some weaknesses you can use against them - at least on land.

I wonder if these are going to be the final civs. I honestly don’t know who else they would add. (Plus. The civ chart is completed, unless if it’s always been like that when they’d add news civs.(Granted, I’m sure there could be other civs from like, Africa or the americas, for instance).

I want a new AoE2 civilisation every week, just so I got a good excuse to listen to the intro tune.

*Next make a music album with some collaborators and call it "Spirit Of The Ska"*

Maybe I’ll learn why according to Reddit the Armenians and Georgians are 45# and 46# on the ladder for competitive play.

that ally bonus could make the eagle scout kinda broken in team games i'm guessing

I found it interesting that Armenians is actually similar to Japanese in many ways. They are really good at infantry, decent at foot archer, a strong hard hitting archer option(composite bowman vs hand cannoneer) not so well as calvary, good for water maps(military wise vs economic wise), and poor at seige work shop. Also they both have bonus toward resorce gatering structure to some degree. I woud say Armenians are alot stronger than Japanese thanks to power creep, but they are surprising similar.

should you be making the fortified church outside of your walls on arena to use the garison bonus for initial relics gatheriing ? (then move it to another inside the walls)

It is strange, nothing described here is really in my style, except them being a defensive civilization. And I am tempted to play them, dark age spears, feudal age longswords, castle age two-handers, a free relic, the composite bowmen. So many little things. Are they like the Burgundians that seem amazing but feel a bit frustrating to play or... I guess I just have to try.

Thinking about history I would expect them to be a economy and siege focused civ

Talk about a Castle/Feudal age rush civ... Composite bow + warrior monk without paying for any unit upping research.

You and T90 carry the community of AoE. Because of you my ELO is higher.

armenians is my new favorite infantry civ so enjoyable and that fucknig archer is great. alot of times ive managed to counter huskarls and skirmishers and also vietnamese unique. though i dislike that kinda meh sea upgrade ive never researched it mostly because i never paly water maps

I bet they are really good in Forest Nothing

It’s kinda weird that Armenians have a sort of incomplete cavalry tech tree when they actually had some of the best cavalries in history, despite not as good as their neighbors the Georgians

My first question is does the team bonus apply to eagle scouts in the dark age? That scouting potential is mesmerizing

Armenian and Cuman combo in a Feudal Only game (which is a thing apparently) would be so game breaking.

Yesterday I had a question if Armoured & Siege Elephants count as siege when it comes to ignoring armour. Thankfully they do, or else the Composite Bowmen would have melted them! Also as a minor bug, if you have researched Block Printing, Warrior Priests gain +3 LoS upon picking up a relic, but also immediately lose the LoS upon dropping it. This doesn't happen with the Team Bonus as it specifically applies to all infantry class units & the 'Warrior Priest with Relic' unit separately as well I'm wondering if anyone has tried out a Warrior Priest rush? They cost double the gold as they do food, like Eagles. Sanctity is their Bloodlines. They're obviously a lot slower, but can keep healing each other! -As a buff, maybe the Fereters tech could apply to both infantry and cavalry (with an appropriate adjustment to cost)? This would be like the Dravidian Wootz Steel applies to both units as well- Edit - Nevermind, it doesn't apply to Spearman-line units anyways, so maybe only Knights?

when will you do an in depth look into the Romans?

does the team bonus also impact allied eagle scouts ?

I like the squarespace add although i would not use it

Hey Sotl, ever thought about revisiting the "Building the perfect x civ" considering we've had some new content since then

goddamn i probably should get back to aoe2

I would love to see a new round of OP custom civs since it's been 2years since you did it. With all the new civs and bonuses since the last time it would be interesting to see if you would change any of the civs you made.

the match up with champs is tricky, i watched a lot of videos where they are the best, even beating slavs in groups

I want more new units for all the civs

Is anyone else having an issue where the Warrior Priest aren't automatically healing injured units?

Does the free relic effect relic victories. Like if the enemy collects all relics and the timer count down starts and you build your first fortified church and get the relic in it, does that negate the relic victory for the other player?

SotL, with a lot of new civs in aoe2, is your favourite still Japanese?

Please keep checking for mistakes in the subtitles

For a castle age economy, advancing to imperial age is still more expensive than the champion upgrade. I think I can afford to spend more time in castle age for this civ...