I sense a Celts overview coming soon

They're impressively resistant given that they only wear a thin layer of pants and otherwise can take a few arrows in their bare chests and go on power walking and raiding.

william wallace would be mad so ill say 10/10

my favourite units :O

The pain that is seeing a block of these running around outside your base before you even have champ ready

Back when I was little I would play the AoE2 trial a bunch, and because I liked Woad Raider's aesthetic I would use my monks to convert as many as I could so I could have my own woad raider army.

So good to see an in-depth analysis that includes the critical metric of post-fight cliquiness

Honestly, watching SOTL go over a classic AOE2 unique unit gives serious nostalgia vibes and satisfaction. Love this content.

ever since I was kid, when I thought Woad was a mistype for Road Rider, which made sense to me back then ... to this day I cannot bring my brain to rewire it to proper name

I have found that power walking like the Woad Raider allows you to have great speed for a longer time frame than if you were conventionally running, probably because you're moving your arms and legs less. Perhaps there is something to their animation.

2:30 HE SAID THE HOAGG LINE!!!!

Tutorial loves them so much

Got know the pain when these little guys swarm your base

Spirit Of The Jigsaw 👌 I appreciate the pun-transitions into Sponsors SOTJ does, it's almost like he gets a civ bonus for that

....... How did I never know that I needed Spirit of the Law jigsaw puzzles until just now

I do love the Woad Raiders but their anachronistic nature (bronze age) does make me understand why some want to replace them with Gallowglass

For some reason, I miss them being used for Amerindian units in certain maps and missions for the pre-HD/DE AoE II.

A compositional benefit of Woad Raiders is that agaist Celts most players arent eager to clump up their ranged unit so just 2 scorpions mean you often get to fight staggered formations.

personally i feel the coolness of the "walk running" animation of a bunch of woad raiders attacking you more frightening than any other of most powerful units, needless to say is my favourite unit since back my childhood haha

Petition to finally give them a running animation!!

8:03 This is the funniest thing I have seen this week at least. Just Imagine how baffled those horses must be that these naked celts are just running them down.

Spirit of the Jigsaw is another one of SotL's many businesses, among those there's: >Spirit of the Log, a wood trading company. >Smelting of the Law, his very own smiting company. >Smelling of the Law, his otorhinolaryngologist clinic >Spirit of the Loss, his funerary services company. >Spirit of the Lawn, his gardening company.

0:14 Gooo goooo

Thank the man for putting the ad at the end

I just got back into AoE2 after years of not playing it and boy is it good and your vids are a tremendous glimpse in a few niches/civs. Keep up the good work!

SOTL got a square space sponsorship?! He's big time now.

Sniping monks 🙏 and siege (especially Trebuchets and Bombard Cannons) is a great benefit of speed too. Plus, speed is generally helpful in a game for getting units to where they need to be or running away from things. The training time being low is also really good, especially for defence 🛡. Also, the unit upgrades are really expensive and time consuming for the Militia-line. Elite Woad Raider is expensive, but you can use the un-upgraded Woads for specialist roles in the meantime. Whereas Militia-line units behind on upgrades are basically useless 🚫🧰. Celt Champions are probably still a great addition for extremely late Imperial Age, though, outside of the Woad's specialist roles, as they are less gold intensive. Though you only tend to transition to that extremely late, so it will just be a normal Champion transition. Also, the Militia-line is a counter for Eagles. Overall, it is important to know how much of a replacement they can be, to know whether or not you should eventually tech into Champions.

Spirit of the Jigsaw - so good. Love your approach to ads.

We know whats the next video now! Celts overview 😊

Woad raiders were my JAM when I was a kid playing age of kings and didn't know wth I was doing. Then I moved onto War Elephants. I could barely beat the medium AI. Cheese Steak Jimmy and Robin Hood helped me out a TON lol.

great video as always!

I feel that every video of yours can be a research paper on AOE2 or gaming in general. You take a particular topic and break it down into objective/overview, analysis in terms of different types, counters, use cases, ages, varieties, bonuses, etc. and finally conclusion. You might as well get a noble prize for Gaming.

I love the background music. everytime

Your Squarespace website puns are my new favorite bits of your videos. Second only to your (increasingly rare, sadly) intro music.

Thanks for another thorough and in-depth video! One thing not covered, though, is that the woad raider's smaller size means they can swarm more effectively than faster but larger units. It gives a mass of woad raiders a larger potential surface area, meaning they can surround units more effectively and ultimately deal more DPS. Woad raiders kill fleeing villagers far more quickly than most melee cavalry units, for example. Especially at lower ELOs like mine (1000) where the micro is not so good.

Great vid as always, with the archer tests, it would be interesting to see if the attack changes would mean they kill archers in less hits than longswords (4-5 hits for long bois depending on upgrades vs 3-4 for the woads)

Could you please do a video on the knight line? I'd love to go down the history of how the knight rush has been the meta for literal decades.

I keep watching these videos right after playing Valheim, and coming away with new build ideas. AoE2 buildings are so perfect for the construction engine in that game.

My absolute favorite unit when I first played this game MANY years ago

As a frequent Celt player, I would agree with your conclusions here. Especially with general infantry upgrades over the last couple years, champions have come to replace what Woads once did in my army, except when I really need the speed. They really are great at raiding - a dozen Woads in an enemy open base is a huge headache, and 20 elite ones becomes a real threat that can take out a generic TC and the vills hiding in it. I usually bring them in just as the tide starts to turn in my favour and I can breathe enough to afford to add them, and then they quickly snowball.

4:19 very historically accurate considering how Strabo and Tacitus described the relationships between celts. cough cough

My fave civ. I sneak a castle to the side of the map, not even for defense nor attack and start to mass em. They don't expect the Woad inquisition running directly into their unprotected buildings. And when they do it's already too late, it was my low elo strategy, love it.

I would love to see the devs update the Woad Raider movement animation. The sped up power walk is so weird. Plus the Eagles and Ghulams have such a cool run animation...Woads could look like that too.

Spirit your the best

The Woad Raider and the Furious

I found out the cavalier-paladin dynamic first hand rececntly. I underestimated how much punch the Woad Raiders packed, so while I was just barely winning with numbers, I was surprised just how well they fended off my cavalier until I was able to finally get paladin.

Was a good weekend for RTS nostalgia as C&C Ultimate Collection finally hit Steam! I've always gravitated to AoE2 more often due to the random maps, but I'm glad I'm able to play Red Alert 2 and C&C Generals: Zero Hour again. There's even talk of a Red Alert 2 remaster, though, I doubt it will be anywhere near as extensive as AoE2:DE.

Great video, I assume we will see a Celt overview soon! I noticed recently looking at the civ stats that the Sicilians are having the opposite phenomenon of the Chinese. Sicilians are the number 1 performing civ for low elo games but the bottom performer in high elo games. I was wondering why that is, I would be interested to see what your take on it is.

Any chance to get a deep look into differences of Hussite Wagons vs Organ Guns? Love the vids SOTL!

thank you spirit for the detailed video about woad raider . please I have a question ,spirit you always speak about negative side and positive side of any civ unique unit but when you talk about the civ bonus economic bonus you actually talk about the positive sides of the economic bonus but is there any annoying side we should be worry about like for example stone minning or gold minning of villager civ can I actually expect a minning camp working in the negative way like minning a bit slower or maybe completley slower that could be noticabley annoying wich could affect my economy civ

Wallace has come!

What would be great is that if you could get Hoang to give some insight on Celts for the civ overview.

i have so much fun running around peoples bases on nomad with this bois! 😊

Hi SOTL, I love Woad Raiders! I'd like to give a suggestion about testing melee units in scenario editor like minute 03:59. As I saw the battle, both Woad Raiders and Longswordmen were enganging a fight with totally clumsy behavior. They didn't attack the closest units and moved around to target certain unit which affected the result of the fight. This happens when you patrolled both units or they were standing without any command. To avoid this kind of situation, you can Use 1 Player and 1 AI instead of 2 AIs, then patrol both. They 90% will attack any closest enemy unit they meet without moving around behavior and getting attacked. The 10% comes from the Player Units sometimes still moving around and you might need to restart the test. Hopefully you read my comment. I used this testing settings in my past latest videos, it worked pretty well with very good results.

Wood Raider sees strange with high speed and that walking animation

Spirit, have you made a video on the effectiveness of Druzhina? What's an efficient Champ/Halb combo when one is facing groups of enemy units?

20 years ago my first meta was spamming Woads + pikes + siege rams, but there was a match were I changed tactics, I destroyed several buildings and then retreated to heal them and to restore the ranks while the enemy rebuilt his base, then I struck again and again, soon they didn't have woods and stone for more buildings

catle for woads baracks for pikes and siege workshop for scorpions

I love this content! I have a question though: why do you keep saying "Age of Conquerors"? Wasn't the expansion called juts "The Conquerors"?

I couldn't find spirit of the jigsaw anywhere, could you link it maybe?

Trying to find your Spirit of the Jigsaw website, Cant find it though.

SOTL was not did something about woad raiders when i searched about this video 1-2 weeks earlier.

Do you use any scripting/automation to do the micro archer examples for the purpose of consistency? I was thinking because those examples happen on a completely open plane so it would be possible and interesting to have a python script or something of that nature doing the clicking to move perfectly for firing within the calculated refresh time between shots. This would allow for perfect micro when doing comparisons or at least perfect micro from the client side but for the purposes of crunching numbers, this seems really useful though it would never truly compare to how a player could do use the units it would show the theoretical limits and the delay between stopping, moving and panning the screen for firing could be modified to try to be more representative of different ELO players. Likely this could be a whole video on its own.

non-elite damage boost from 8 to 11 is extremely important for raiding - woads can now kill villagers with loom in 4 hits, which was not possible before even with iron casting

Mmm i wonder which civ review we get next 🤔

I'd like to see a bonus attack damage versus villagers to enphasis the raiders aspect

Spirit of the La Hire!

I like Woads. Great for a late overwhelm if you have resources and pop space.

I randomed into Celts last night. Wasn't sure what else to do but make siege and Woad Raiders. It went well until my opponent massed up enough Gbetos to shred my army.

I always treat this unit as, well... Raiders (it's in their name). Most of the time I use them for raiding party on enemy base, destroy some buildings, kill villagers and disrupt the economy (always have a group of pikes handy). They're like infantry version of cavalry archer when it comes to harrassment role

I have a feeling that we are getting a new update of the civ overview on celts, am i wrong?

I always liked this unit but has a limited use, I would use it to make small raids to destroy houses fast before or when a big fight is happening. Hit and run tactics ftw.

celt fast castle into woad raider spam has been my go to for the last few weeks, nice to get a few wins in before everyone sees this haha

NGL I'd actually buy one of those jigsaws

One of my favorite units even from back in the day. Fast and hard hitting and easy to produce. You barely have time to react when they come, and IF you leave them alone for a second they're already at the other side of the map pummeling your economy.

When talking about Woad Raiders melting buildings it's important to notice they have much smaller hitbox than Knights meaning you can have like twelve Woad Raiders attacking a house when only seven Knights could fit around it. In such situation Woad Raiders are doing more than double damage to the building.

dude id love to seeu comenting tournament matches toghter with memb

1:45 it's so interesting to me that the reason for the animation looking so wonky all over the years was this buff many of us didn't know existed because we started with AoC and that DE could "fix" by changing it to a running animation. Although I believe that after all these years their fast walking has probably become a visual characteristic of the unit.

Will you making video about bad pathing?

1:55 Oh, hi! :D

In going above and beyond they would be great if the castle heal radius could reach the whole map but it doesn't neither does the heal rate increases, celts are still fast arrows since it's a castle age tech.

I reckon it'd be cool if these were in place of the champion line, or at least treated like the serjant

The Bests

I almost feel like the knight comparison is closer than the militia-line comparison

No idea what happened in the video, I was only looking at how the units group after fighting. In later fights the outcasts were sometimes allowed to come back :)

I dunno why, but as a child I thought these guys were armed with a pair of gigantic circular saw blades! Must've been those lower resolutions playing tricks on me. I played on a hand-me-down pc that my dad let me have when I was 10. Over 20 years ago! What a game!

I think you should make a website SpiritOfTheRaw where...well..

I genuinly look forward to whatever cheesy pun you put in your squarespace ad.

For historical purposes, I'd like to see them renamed and reskinned to "Gallowglass". Maybe at least as an optional setting

I love how you've kept the same sick looking logo over the years instead of switching to some boring "minimalist" modern logo

I feel like Supplies should also apply to unique infantry units. Like you said, the tech makes them less appealing What do you think?

Ya know , some civ lacking some techs cus balance and Civ flavor , but what if they do have that tech , for example how would it be if as Celt you get to have Squire , how fast the Woad Raider become and will it change everything ....

How good are woad raiders when fighting near celt castle with stronghold improvement?

Celts overview coming?

PogoOooooooooo!!!!!!!!

I would like to suggest that their speed does offer one other benefit. They are fast enough that once they pursue an enemy formation, they don't really require micro. Meanwhile, if your opponent wishes to win the engagement, he must spend his attention space on a furious game of micro. This gives the Celt player more decision time in the battlespace and should enable you to more effectively apply pressure on your opponent until they are overwhelmed. On the other hand, your opponent can choose to abandon their units to their fates and focus on a more effective response. This is a costly strategy because they will lose those units and the time and resources spent making them, and because they will still have to face those same Woad Raiders again. In short, they create a dilemma for your opponent for which their solutions all have serious drawbacks. I won't say that makes them OP, but I will say that it makes them a dangerous threat for any player to counter.

I paused at @0:00 to say this, and I mean it. You better say they're good, because I've loved these things for 20+ years now.

Hello Law, Spirit of the Guys here

Guys I have a question. Do gambesons and supplies not matter for samurai?

How they do against other UU, especially UU Archers