is healing worth it? "no" *wololo* "yes"

Each life is worth it, so yes. Ask each soldier if they’d like to be healed :,(. Ask their families

"We're just pikemen, sir. We're meant to be expendable." "NOT TO ME"

We should also consider the units' well-being as an extra value. Imagine how you must feel when you have to fight with almost no health.

I remember when i'd stockpile 4000 of each resource, slowly start building an army of 40-50 mangudai, 4 monks, 5 villagers and 4 trebs, all from 1 production building and heal all my units after each skirmish. I'd feel sooo bad if i let one my people die :C

the cost of your first monk: 90 gold the cost of herbal medicine: 350 gold the knowledge that your units will be at 100% instead of only a fraction of their potential health: priceless, there are some thing gold can buy for anything else we pick teutons.

I know this focuses more on multiplayer and skirmish, and a lot of people don't even touch the campaign, but having recently played some of the campaigns (after mostly ignoring it for 20+ years), a monk's healing abilities are invaluable in scenarios where you have few resources or no base. Every unit is valuable in that situation, and monks can turn the tide of it significantly.

"it may seem like a lot of hand-waving" Your quips are seriously underrated.

Just to add: Healing gains value with more armor. The less HP and more defences a unit has, the more healing will have an impact.

If you think about it... Monk is the most cost effective unit ever? They can generate infinite gold through relics and they can make an army worth many times more.

Herbal medicine will be meta this year in pro games because of this video

Back when I started university about two decades ago, I often played a lot of AOE2 in the dorms with my dorm mates. Me being completely new to the game at the time meant that I didn't have much time to learn the build strats or what units work best against other units. In 3 v 3 fights, one of my friends always plays as the Franks and spams hordes of paladins. My first two games against him were spent testing unit combinations and counters against him. In my third game, I played as Byzantines and went with 10 monks in a box formation of crossbows and pikes and the rest being camel units. Depending on the situation, I could bait his two control groups of paladins into either the box or the camels and the other would just swing behind his army for that hammer and anvil effect. This worked out extremely well because he was losing his paladins through both combat and conversion. In the first 2 games, his doomstacks of paladins would single-handedly crush our armies but this box and camel setup I cooked up annihilated his paladins so that my team mates could then either follow up or focus on the other players. This was such a massive shock to him that ever since then he never doomstacked paladins if I was on the opposing team.

"Wololo" "Wow, that is a very compelling argument." Isn't it, though? XD

"A single castle with herbal remedy can outdo 100 villagers in resource gain" What? That is insane.

actually, now that i think about it, monasteries should also heal units, and should be the highest healing rate imo, or maybe give a buff to healing rates to monks near the monasterie

As a healer-centric player, this was actually very enlightening!

AI’s micro management of monks is insane. No human could convert as many as them. (But Viper isn’t human, though, is he?)

Pls continue with aoe2 vs history I love that series

Max population effects monks heavliy. With 100 max pop monks can be used much beter than 300 max pop. With 100 pop u can micro more and convert and heal units more:) Tho i say monks are most valuable as converters.

so to summarize, healing is good for leveraging a preexisting advantage. making a fight that's already uneven even more uneven.

I've been waiting for this for a long time.

For me, when I have a mass ov longbows behind a wall defending on Black Forest, having a couple of monks with them saved me tons of gold and wood.

7:33 shouldn't the armor also be taken into consideration? The HP level becomes way more significant for highly armored units. Also, I think it's hard to judge if one if unit has more "heal-value" than other because they have different roles (e.g.: melee units always take damage from an engagement, while cavalry archers can hit and run). My point is that you could get away fighting with damaged range units, but it's almost never the case when it comes to melee units.

9:25 you can send back the 2 or 3 more damaged cataphracts to heal, so you don't lose momentum but still get your units healed. You get the best of both worlds

Man was expecting that vulul sound when you said "conversation has that anxiety sound"

Monks attached to large groups of ranged units are fun, longbowmen particularly.

My thoughts while watching the video: Of course yes! Okay, I'm right. Hm, maybe I should not. Okay, first convert and then heal. Got it. Or better research Herbal Medicine and garrison inside Castles. Okay, forget everything - just heal more.

That castle healing was good value !

That's what I like about Spirit's analysis videos. They're extensively thorough, yet you can actually understand it in straightforward terms.

i don’t know about other people, but your videos are so satisfying to watch for me at least.

I was thinking over this for over a year... finally you answered it. Thanks

I literally never knew that multiple minks can heal the same unit, I always thought it was like a one to one function, I learn something new every video.

Thanks for posting this one. I am an on-again-off-again newbie. Played 20 years ago, and sporadically since then. Got into the HD version last year a bit and the DE recently. I have always used monks to heal my guys in battles. I always saw it as saving resources.

when I heard you mentioning micro, I wondered how those unbalanced fights would turn out if the micro nerd just focuses on healing close to dying units with the 4 monks...

Been watching this channel for 3 years at least and this is the first time I’ve watched a video on the day it was released! Boom!

I really love these types of videos! Keep up the good work

Perfect video. Keep making these info packed ones!

I've been very excited for this video Spirit, thanks!

The health to resource cost is a little misleading. For example 120 1hp knights will do a lot more damage than 1 120hp knight.

I started playing AoE2:DE with a bunch of friends and I really enjoy your content. Thnx a lot.

Yay, we got a video about monks! Spirit even mentioned monk range! Now I want a video about all the other monastery upgrades :D

Man you always tackle the most interesting topics! Thank you for that!

Thanks for the great video again. This one was great.

I missed the effect of having a forward monastery and workshop with a pair of monks behind and send wounded knights back before they die during a knight rush without loosing momentum.

Excellent analysis as always

Some really high quality content here!

Dude good job as always.

Now we are asking the real questions

Hi, love your channel a lot! And it's fun to revisit this game with new 'spirit'.

Healing Monks are basically archers that deal negative DPS.

I was waiting this video for ages, after hoangs made it a bit popular we do see pro doing it more often and now with this i guess we are going to see more of it.

good job as always

god i love your videos and the intro music xD

YAY! Spirit intro is back **nods along happily**

When I use healing, I use it in between fights, not during. They're too frail and too slow, so they can easily be killed, therefore they're often not worth their cost in gold. Alternatively, one could build a forward castle to retreat in between fights, which besides healing also provide suppressive fire.

I didn't even know about castle and town hall healing. Thanks!

I demand part 2 for this, I can't believe you didn't mention the super monks, teutons monks with byzantines ally

big fan mr sotl watched every one of your video i love the civ vs history one a lot since that is my favourite subject

I love your analysis. I would never have looked at it with the villagers-per-minute concept. Definitely reminds us all how complex this masterpiece of a game is

There it is! The video on the topic I proposed. Thanx Spirit! :)

Cannot wait till AoE4 comes out and you take off in viewers. Love the dedication you put into every video

Mom in India: Dinner time Spirit in Canada: It's a new video time. Me: ah, all things are coming together now.

the intro music

I love your intro, haha

It'd be cool to see a video by SOTL exploring Survivalist's Heroku app. He's a top 200 player in the aoe2 DE community that made this super cool website where you can compare units in combat and see how many villagers you need on each resource as well as other helpful implements. Love your content, SOTL!

Great video,

Just want to say I love this intro track for your videos. I assume it's some open source track you've used exceptionally creatively but if not you should consider trademarking the track! It's very on brand for you!

i love my Teutons for there healing :) even the free medicin support my early Knights quite nice. best combo is to play with Byzanz in team to double Heal and Heal range... great fun

The only time you would want to heal units with a castle in a game is 1) in a forward castle 2) in a mid-map Teuton castle (preferably with crenellations for extra arrows/range to help with map control). If you win a battle, you don't want to run your army away to heal, you want to go after your opponents Eco or gain more map control.

Sometimes I have my monks heal each other as a few convert a unit or something. I had an army of 80 monks before...it was a lot of gold... besides that, this video is quite accurate 👀

Great job

now this could be a meta changing video. a thing that we missed 20 years. hehe

Great stuff

YES THE FULL INTRO IS BACK

It's nice to have some healing when you are doing a Hoang push, where you siege is doing the work and your units protecting the siege are patroling around it instead of attacking.

Spirit Of The Law: is healing worth it? Me: Well well.... Lets find out

Yay, fresh content boys!

I see it as a very worth tactics for teutons and byzantines. its incredible how tanky teutons armys can be with their monks healing then from so far away. and of course you can also use them to convert enemy units that dont have heresy, and even with heresy its still worth it because your enemy lost a unit. however I dont use much monks in games outside of converting some units and stealing relics.

Nice video ! I would have loved to see knight micro involved into the debate and added to the multiple stats given. You often see high level players micro the low HP kts back to their monastery while still hitting with the other ones. I think about Viper for example who is known for doing this, wether in TG or 1v1. It would have brought a more practical and realistic aspect on healing to the overall content !

useful video!

Why do I keep watching these videos? I've never played Age of Empires nor I have any interest in playing it, but I find these videos fascinating

When I play Tuetons regicide I used to have my special "Turtle" units which were block formations with tuetonic knights on the outside, then archers, and then a couple monks. I usually sent them out in pairs and if I couldn't maintain the knight wall I would consolidate them into one. I liked it for regicide because they were very much moving fortresses that could land on a beach, accomplish the mission, and get out with very few losses. I'm very much a micro player it just feels awesome to have small unit formations that can accomplish big tasks.

Great video. I always loved herbal medicine and now I really see why.

One year anniversary of this video!!!

Used to do the heal in castle with herbal medicine thing in games with my friends back in the original Conquerors expansion, before the Mangudai nerf. It was beautiful. You always had troops to use and backup resources for when you needed trebs or units to counter everything the Mangudai wasn't stupidly good at, which they were 9 times out of 10. Good times.

You're a AOE psycho and that's awesome :) Thanks for the great videos. Cheers from Rio!

The difference in having monks vs not having monks in the army is IMO very significant. I had a lot of matches with my friend who doesn't care about monks at all. I personally keep some of them in my force. I win practically every battle. In the heat of it I tend to missclick an important unit to convert but i noticed that converting even a trash unit gives you a noticable upper hand. It also can disrupt the enemy charging at you. Just convert one unit in thei formation and they will be disrupted for a second while trying to kill it. Monks are micro intensive but it's worth practicing because the benefits are amazing!

Especially the castle + mangudai example is very interesting and I will definitely consider healing in buildings more often. Another thing to consider, however, is opportunity costs. If you're healing your army in a castle, they're not attacking, thus not reducing the enemies capabilities. So your increase in production is in part offset by a non-decrease in the enemies. Still, causing a 100 villagers of resources of damage to the enemy with 20ish units, is a stretch. So it's probably still worth it at times, just a bit less outrageously OP as it seems.

Very informative video, but I would have also liked to see how the byzantines would have performed in those same tests, whether the 50% extra healing would have any impact at all. Also something to consider with healing units in buildings is that you can heal many at the same time. A castle can heal 20 at once, and while slower than a monk, it is something to consider

Great video! I think what would make monks way better is if they could do battle maneuvers and 2 stances like auto convert or no convert just heal. It's such a pain in the ass to micro more than 12 monks for how expensive they are after upgrades and the units upgrades to make monks even worth it. Late game for me gets so chaotic I eventually just ditch monks since I need to keep my economy going too.

Very informative! Is there a vid already about the saved resources from repairing buildings and siege?

I've only ever used monks (or priests as I mainly played AOE 1 with the expansion packs) as healing after the battles. I rarely used them during battles. It seems better in scenerios where you can restore damaged units after a battle before moving on to the next so that you don't have to invest as much into restoring the original army and keep it strong. I generally only heal the big units like the catapults and slow big HP units that are expensive to produce. I don't waste as much time on the smaller units that I can just push out with little cost. That and I use them to scout and convert some of the weaker units. It's been a long time since I've played AOE. I remember in AOE 1 with that one map you start out as Hittite and only have 2 monks at the start and have to convert villagers to start your civilization. It's tricky to pull off sometimes, but I've settled on slowly converting all the villigers of the yellow AI until they can't produce anymore and can't become a threat. I then have the entire landmass to myself since in that campaign scenario, the red AI doesn't have a navy and isn't allowed to make one so they are land locked(as long as i don't clear out the trees that cover the one part of the land that connects to two sides of the map that is). It was easier to build up my army that way as I don't have to constantly worry about yellow AI coming in to cause distractions during the early game while I gather resources and research up my tech. It's one of my fav singleplayer campaigns. I'm not as attached to AOE II though. I barely remember how to play it though at one point I did eventually get as good at that game as I was in AOE 1. The only thing I don't like about it really is how much they changed the UI compared to the original one so I put off playing it because I didn't want to learn a new UI layout. That's a cosmetic thing though. I still think AOE II is probably the best in the series. I just personally preferred AOE 1 because hat's the one I got most familiar with. :P I've always sucked with the multiplayer though. Too much strategy for me to do quickly. This was one of those games where I liked to spend my time in the singleplayer scenarios where I could easily put hours into slowly building up my civ and creating armies to go on the war path near the end. Multiplayer things just happened too quickly for me to keep up. :P

I play with Britons Archers with a lot of monks behind them. Little bit of micro managing regarding incoming mangonels, but the get the job done :)

I'm happy, I think castle healing will be a thing from now on

Also about the garrisoning to heal. If they're archers or have the one bonus where infantry shoot too. Then it increases your defence capabilities for a time/while also.

I always thought that the best use of a monk's healing was to heal raiding units when they come home. The healing can be thought as 'training time' which would have been spent on new units, but is instead spent on the saved unit. Spirit had the same thought at around 6:20 The herbal medicine thought is fun though. I'm only playing campaign and usually ignore stuff I've written off like Herbal, but I'll play with it a bit just for fun.

I like your intro bro...

8:30 Hera just did a video doing exactly this! It was amazing!

Really looking forward to seeing the new Herbal Medicine meta during the next big tourney

Video's like this make me very curious as to the difference in values and behavior looking at other games. For example: healing in starcraft is very important, and I think units heal more hp in comparison. Being used to that I definitely invest in monks in aoe too. Thank for the great vid, keep it up SotL!