I like this patch, it makes Chinese castles if garrisoned significantly harder to destroy without siege equipment, very flavorful.

That issue for Skirmishers was present only because of the addition of Hulche Javelineers giving every civ's skirmisher an unused hidden 2nd projectile. I think that's important to state for viewers who would think Skirms had this issue for 20 years, when they only had it since the Mayan tech change.

I can clearly remember one time in my childhood when I garrisoned a full castle with chu ko nu just to be greatly disappointed with the outcome. Great video!

Next patch: adding a trebuchet to the garrison allows them to shoot an enemy trebuchet in return so that add a historical accuracy

AoE devs watching started to sweat when Spirit of the Law brought up the Krepost extra arrow damage and the potential exploit

This is crazy how chinese castle with full cho ko nu 2 hitted turtle ship..

I have never seen a Turtle Ship sink before. what a cool animation.

This would make the Cuman Mercenaries upgrade look like a great defensive one now!!

this will help cumans a lot in defensive situations, given the lack of bracer hurts a lot the frail kipchaks, and putting them inside castles is now a much better alternative than before. I'm excited for the burmese as well, as this gives another layer of utility for arambais undependent on their accuracy.

Four cannonballs! Never thought I'd see that.

6:25 I was hoping to see a teutonic knight as part of the test, since infantry can add garrison arrows for the teutons.

Chinese castle goes *BRRRRRR*

I like the change cause logically it makes sense. An arrow spam unit SHOULD spam arrows even when garrisoned. But should it be too powerful I could see them nerfing it a little.

So we now have a stationary A10 warthog in AOE2. Can't wait to try that out.

08:20 Or they are "calling the same function" (in the program) for Kreposts; which makes sense that the Kreposts' additional arrows are Castle's.

Love to see a “general advanced tips” video. I’m sure you have heaps of those you could share and the video would be must watch.

6:26 , that outpost, my OCD is kicking in.

6:40 VERY minor correction: as far as i know, Elite Mangudai should deal less DPS than Elite Camel Archers only if you don't take into account the Mongol firing rate bonus; with that taken into account i feel like they should get slightly more DPS done, but i could be wrong of course

7:43 "Which is the Krepost?" Ez, its the one on the left.

Gotta say I wasn't expecting the Elite Camel Archer to have higher DPS than an Elite Mangudai.

Garrisoned Chu Ko Nus before the July patch: "Please understand, I'm not very good at this" Garrisoned Chu Ko Nus after the July patch: "LMG MOUNTED AND LOADED!"

Historically fast firing arrows were mainly used in time sensitive situations such as defending a charge or ambushing. In a castle you need to conserve ammo for a long siege.

Never understood how those extra arrows work, thanks! 11

Who gets excited about getting new video upload notification from "Spirit of the law". ❤️

So in a team game, teutons and Chinese seem like super strong allies with farm bonuses as well as chu ku nu garrisoning teuton crenallation castles

Spirit, how does this work if Chu Ko Nu are garrisoned in Celt Castles with Stronghold?

How does that affect infantry and crenellations for the teutons? Still the same? Also how does it affect donjons?

cool outro showing how its made

Didn't expect that coming.

4:16 Yeah, those _Dark Age Archers_ are bad boys 😁

I don't think it's too powerful. It fits well imo If that little above the previous max is an issue, then people would have been complaining about the lack of arrows a lot more than they were

Pretty sure the fact that krepost behave exactly like castles when it comes to extra arrows is caused by it being the same function call undermeath, so it would be surprising if all the calculations werent completly the same ^^

Spirit! Great stuff. You mentioned Chu Ko Nu extra arrows being 3 pierce dmg? I thought they were actually 3 melee dmg and that's why Chu Ko Nu are so good at killing rams Love that the arrow calculation applies to BBT too! The only civ that can do it is Teutons with extra garrison. If you do 10 Hand Cannons there is enough damage to get 2 cannonballs from the tower

Waiting for Spirit to be the first to make an AoE4 video after its release with a constructive criticism of the new farming bonuses :)

I guess it would make it fairer when every garrisoned unit would just throw their own arrows (at their own speed, and their own damage bonuses), maybe with a bit of bonus range or the 25% hill damage for being up higher, instead of trying to convert everything into "castle arrows".

Good to have u in the community!

Does this facor in the +25% for the burgundian hand canons?

"How many arrows would you like?" Chu Ko Nu: "YES"

Oh man... not another reason for Chinese players to amass a ridiculous amount of Chu Ko Nus....

could you do a best cav archers civ video? the one you have is pretty old and doesnt include tatars and updates

Interesting, though it does sound like perhaps a small nerf is in order. For single shot units, the calculation generously assumes full damage is dealt instead of being blocked by armor, but this is actually fine because most units don't have enough attack to add more than one arrow, if that, and any arrows they _do_ add will have their damage reduced by armor. For multi shot units, this gets a bit ridiculous, because the effect of armor would compound with every extra projectile. You're basically taking a bunch of weak attacks and adding all their damage together as if it was one strong attack, and then only deducting armor from the damage _once._ My ballpark figure is that extra projectiles should only count 50% towards the unit's damage, or that a default armor rating should be assumed when considering extra projectiles. Even a default armor of 2 would likely make a dramatic difference, and most units you'll face will have more pierce armor than that.

So much effort and testing, I don't play AOE2 atm but these videos are very interesting! Keep up the great work

I dont play Aoe2 often, but for some reason I like watching your videos when you calculate damage output, strategy, etc.

I feel like the only way to tell if it's too much will be to see how it plays out. But at the very least, it definitely feels better having the multi-projectile units be better at adding more projectiles when garrisoned.

Does it work for garrisoned organ guns or longboats in "converted" harbors? As in those units trained and garrisoned within the same building before releasing...? Just curious

You need to take into account (nobody said this) the lower attack rate from firing more extra arrows. The reload only starts after firing the last arrow and the castle fires sequentially, not simultaneously. This also means its harder to change targets the more arrows there are.

Not the first time you try to catch the dev team with details and it doesn't work. So cheers to the development team ;)

chinese: one of the best civ in the game Dev: lets buff them even more

Love the change. Amazingly insighful video, as always.

Now that Skirmishers add a fair amount of arrows when garrisoned, I wonder how it’ll change trash fights in 1v1s. A last stand in a Castle perhaps?

Love your videos sotl your soothing voice and maths are like therapy. Never change ❤️

China contacted the devs to buff the chu ko nu, sounds crazy but most likely.

Good to know they fixed this problem. It is weird to think an archer cause more damage outside the castle. I hope they put Steppe lancers on Huns menus next. You know, to make the cavalry of this "CAVALRY Civ" less standard. Really, they got only one bonus to them.

Firstly, I thought that Skirms not adding errors was an intentional thing for all these years. Secondly - I had no idea you can fire multiple canon balls from bombard tower after 20 years playing this game

I never thought about this

What would be the case with the Ballista elephant with two projectiles?

The way the turtle ship collapses in on itself is kinda hilarious

With the bonus damage, it now seems to always be better to garrison units rather than leaving them outside, if your enemy is in range of a castle.

About time that happened... after 7 Years -,,,-

Each of your videos is like a gift whatever it is i know i will enjoy it

That single not aligned outpost at 6:33 is bothering me more than I expected

Ahh...the world is whole again. Thanks, Spirit.

How does your kipchacks get extra 1+1 armor with cumans? Or Does the Tatar silk armor tech helps allies too?

Hi SOTL, how does this work on Mayan Skirmishers, which get a 2nd Projectile with their Castle Age unique Tech?

Castle age Chinese castle drop looking pretty good.

"Just noticed you can actually increase bombard towers shells with garrisoned units" ... Huh! well now.

You forgot to account for the Mongols’ faster firing rate for Elite Mangudai. They should increase the arrows by much more than Elite Camel Archers.

Love your videos bro keep them up.

Those machinegun castles look nuts!

Well, if I ever get a handful of Elite Kipchaks from Cuman Mercenaries, I now know how I'll be using them.

4:05 is that Silk Armor?

I would worry about if such castle with few garrisons is OP against rams. They should probably treat chu-ku-nu as crossbow or arbalest when they are in a castle.

Strange. In Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, I remember that the repeater trooper (which acted like a chu-ko-nu) was crazy good for garrisoning in towers. This means it was fixed since the start for SWGB but not for AOE2, until now

The Buff the Cumens always needed!

Castle loaded with Chu Ko Nus = Omaha flashbacks

Did you try elite skirmishes with mayan bonus tech (fire 2 projectiles)

I remember the days. When I would offensively castle my foes. And run packs of 20 conquistadors in and out for healing. And watching swarms of arrows raining down on foes as they abused herbal medicine before darting back out to give my Cavaliers or Paladins a turn for healing goodness. Always wondered why melee units don't offer half their DPS as arrows (with some bonus for spearmen as anti-cav specialists) but clearly they felt champions offering a boost to dps against ranged units or boats would be op.

Chu Ko Nus and Kicaphakas are my fav unique range units.

The bit with Kreposts works the opposite way, too: when guard towers and keeps were buffed with +1 attack in Forgotten Empires, the secondary arrows were not initially buffed, and the amount of arrows garrisoned units added was based on the hidden 'extra arrow' damage, not the main damage. Arrow Slits didn't affect them either. Fixing this coincided with nerfing Yasama, the tech that gives Japanese towers extra arrows. Since the cause of all this is that only some units have an arrow unit with non-zero damage in the game stats (which you can see with Genie editor), getting the correct number of Krepost arrows is more of an accident than clever design. Chu Ko Nu doing 3 damage against rams, because of a "0 melee damage" entry for their secondary arrows, really seems like a legacy of this accidental arrangement, that continues affecting the game today. Someone 23 years ago thought, "well, the arrow for this unit shouldn't do any melee damage, so I'll put a 0 in this field" when they should have left it blank, and the consequence 23 years later is that a single Chu Ko Nu does more damage than a castle's volley of arrows to a ram.

Great news. Great video.

I would like to bring back a feature of the old Age of Kings. Back in 1998 arrows from the castle made a sort of area damage, so there was reduced risk of overkilling. A fully garrisoned castle could wipe out in one shot 4-5 low armored units

So Spirit are you going to talk about the sneaky bonuses, that some techs give my fave is the byzantines logistica yes we all know it adds trample damage but what most of us don't know is that it adds a +6 damage versus Infantry, making the cataphract the greatest anti infantry unit ever even the mighty Teutonic Knight cannot stand up against that power, same can be said for your vaunted Samurai.

This is Important

I just read about it, the Chu Ko Nu probably should be called Zhugenu, because they use the Zhugenu, named after Zughe Liang.

Good buff. Garrison meta goes brrrrrr

Chu Ko No? Chu Ko Yes? Chu Kon Deez Nuts!

each extra arrow should count as only 1 damage imo, that is what they are "supposed" to do against units since they will most likely be fired against targets that have 2 or more pierce armor.

They fix things i never noticed before 11

You can reupload the Huns análisis with the atheims change

Thank god for SOTL!!!

Speaking of Kreposts, their range should be 8.

Do fletching, bracer, etc add damage to the 3-damage extra arrows of the chu-ko-nu and kipchak?

They really need to _kipchak_ their arrows so they don't run out of them, since they're shooting more than others xD

In 1942 the Germans created the MG42, a revolutionary rapid fire gun. Prior to that in 1862, the world was introduced to the Gatling gun, capable of heavy sustained fire. Prior to what was the Chinese and Cuman castles with 13-ish garrisoned unique units :P

Hey guys! spirit of the law here!

Garrisoning archers in a bombard tower makes the tower shoot extra cannon balls. I can see a new meme rising. 5:42 Castle extra arrows deal +11 damage vs stone defenses, not +9. I tested it in game. Use slow-motion to watch them attack a piece of wall if you don't believe it. And yeah, I wonder why krepost arrows deal more bonus damage (+13) even though castle is technically better than krepost in every way.

I just love the idea that putting a bunch of chinese dudes in a german made tower magically makes a cannon shoot 4 cannonballs at a time

Makes me wonder what the teutons civ tect gives in regards to infantry firing arrows when garrisoned. Mainly the capey boy

Y'know, considering all the cool destruction animations I'm surprised they didn't add a Kaiju cheat to the game.

Chu ko nu OP as hell