A tech making their "Wololo" LOUDER would be the best tech in the game.

How to use Fervor with the most efficiency: 1 - Go fo rfast castle and build 6 monasteries as soon as you can when you reach castle age. 2 - Create 5 monks and research fervor all at the same time. 3 - Be the first to arrive at every relic. 4 - Loose all your monks to light cav, skirms or pikes becuse you werent looking at the monks and just set way points.

The other day I went to the priest for confession. Before we started, I congratulated him on the recent baptism he had performed. His face looked somber, however, and he stopped me before I said any more. "I can't hear your confession, my son." His normally stolid face was now quivering and a mist was forming over his wise old eyes. "You see, after the wonderful experience of welcoming in a new convert into our church," he was now holding back sobs as the great tears streamed down his kind, wrinkled face. "I've lost all my faith! I'm an atheist now." I was annoyed, but by the time I was back to my car, the priest was running toward me with great fervor, shouting indistinctly. Once he was 9 - no, 12 feet away I could finally understand him. "Come back, my son! I can hear your confession now!"

I’m really trying to integrate monks more in my games because of your advice. I just always hated how slow they were and how badly I always used them. :P

I think block printing should also increase their healing range.

Personally, I think Herbal Medicine deserves a higher spot than Faith, if only because it is easier to pay for and can quickly pay for itself.

Shout out to those monks from the 4th El Cid campaign for researching all those techs for you. Their diligent work was not in vain.

Aztec monk trying to stop a Spanish cannon by sacrificing more villager to sun god

Herbal medicine makes 100% sense to be in the monastery though. Monks did a lot with herbs. Sometimes realism is best

3:00 you also have to keep in mind the resources you are both losing, and giving to your enemy with a conversion.

am i the only one who thinks Monks should have regional skins like Trade carts? it really makes no sense that Chinese, Malians and Huns are rocking up with christian monks. it's a pretty recognizable unit too, just give it robes, a staff and a book or something of the sort and it's obviously a monk

I think a lot of the thought behind these rankings stems from using monks as "converters" rather than as "healers." I use monks mostly as healers, and like to incorporate a few monks in my armies as a way to assist in loss control (particularly in archer formations), so things like Sanctity and Fervor rank a lot higher for me, as those monks are marching within the unit and will often take damage themselves.

I think Sanctity still takes the number 1 slot for me as it makes your Monks much more effective in basically every situation as well as being available in the Castle Age and quite cheap. Redemption is definitely a powerful tech, but there are games where people will counter your Monks with Light Cavalry and not siege. The Arena map is a good example of this. Also, as pointed out in the video, it can still be risky going for Mangonel conversions without Sanctity which to me makes Sanctity the all round better tech.

I dont even play AOE2 but i watch all your videos anyway.

I think herbal medicine is perfectly placed in the monastery, since monks would cultivate healing herbs and know how to apply them.

Hey Spirit! Thanks for doing this as always. Not sure how others feel but a quick summary at the end of the video would be mighty useful. Just the techs and a one-liner or even just a table of everything discussed. :)

thanks for the content! must have been hard to narrow it down to your top 10

I always get Fervour because having Monks be a bit faster so they can avoid some damage and keep up with faster units I group them with.

Hi @SpiritOfTheLaw, love your content. It's weird seeing you compare the cost of Faith to the cost of units it would save, discounting the fact that losing them would lead your enemy to get free ressources, especially since you do count it for atonement.

Herbal Medicine I really enjoy in campaign for the reason mentioned in the video; Cavalry Archers. While you heal them up in the Castle, they're also shooting ~20 arrows at anything nearby.

In retrospect, I feel we did too much with Monastery techs. We should have made these techs NOT cost gold, and probably combined two or more into a single tech.

It also Worth pointing out that with redemption during the process of converting buildings you can switch the target into enemy unit which leads to insta convertion. Its important because enemy usually counter monks with light cav. With "fully" charged monks it no longer works

Several videos back, I asked if you would do a video focused solely on the Block Printing tech in this game, focusing on its importance, which civs you feel make the best usage of it, and which civs you feel would benefit the most from having it but don't. While I would still really love it if you made that specific video at some point, this video was also a lot of fun to watch, and I was honestly not surprised at all that Block Printing is so high on your list.

Thanks for making and sharing this! I completely agree Redemption is #1 and by a country mile.

Great video, hope to see the same list for aoe 1.

Not to mention that Monks need Redemption to convert a handful of powerful castle units that are considered “seige” like Portuguese Organ Gun, Khmer Ballista Elephant and Bohemian War Wagon.

Thank you sir, didn’t know I needed this

How I use monks in every game: -Train two monks with fervor and sanctity behind them. -Send them to get relics. -Have them hang around to heal my units, including when moving offensively. -Prerequisite step: set AI to moderate.

Traditionally Monks were the main surgeons and doctors, so it does make sense that's where Herbal Medicine would be researched.

Fervor has one thing going for it I really like: it makes the box selection with a monk in the middle less of a problem with archers or infantry (except pikes or fast unique), and it also allows monks to reach their intended destination during a game 15% faster.

The best time to use monks was when there was that bug around that allowed you to select a bunch of monks with some other units and initiate an attack-move, whereupon they would just move forward and convert anything that moved.

There should be a civ tech that transforms monks into druids - still able to do all the same as before, but now they can also convert animals. The best part is, even deer can be used for scouting, and sending a wolf after enemy villagers might mess up their eco.

Even if redención is consider a defensive tec, is funny how sometimes you can clean a city faster than siege if the enemy is too envidius and delete as soon as he notice, harming him more than allowing the conver.

Next video should be ranking the monk bonuses and UTs. I have faith in you.

Love this Video!

Herbal Medicine should be placed higher I think, based on it's increased usage by pros as well. It's reseached way more often than a tech like Faith for instance.

Redemption is also great at charging conversion during a push and switching to units for instant conversion

13:00 that beat got me like Drop it spirit

Does this mean we’ll be getting a top 5 monk civs soon? Also, petition to change the name of Aztec Monks into “Chonks” or “Chonky Monkys”.

I'd say Herbal Medicine goes from worst to *best* monastery tech in campaign games. Microing monks there is usually not really worth it against the AI, so most monk techs are pretty bad, and monk defense is situational. Being able to quickly heal your units in the castles you often build to defend chokepoints is super useful. I often end up building a monestary for no other reason than to quickly pick up Herbal Medicine

I would love to see this list again but this time for the missionary. I think that certain techs would be more important than others.

One of my favorite plays is a cavalry and monk combo. Because of this fervor is much more important when you need to get your monks from one end of the map to the other.

Great, thanks.

in early version of aoe2 sanctity gives not +15hp but +50%, when you reached sanctity with Aztecs as last monastery tech, monk had over 100 hp! it counts +50% from ACTUAL monk hp: (30 + 5 for each tech)+50% !! After patch this was removed

I have monks mostly for the in-battle healing they have, speed and hp is always a priority for me for monks in my formations

Man those Aztec monks are jacked af.

I had been mulling around an idea for a Civilization, called The Dutch (Naval, Economy and Monk). Team Bonus: Ships have +50% Line of Sight. Their bonuses: Villagers gain HP from Monastery Techs and (starting in Feudal) can convert enemy units for 100 Gold, and Redemption would extend this to buildings as well. Economy, Monastery, University and Gunpowder techs come an age earlier (which means bombard cannons, bombard towers, hand cannoners etc. in in Castle Age). Trade Carts and Trade Cogs can generate Gold from your own markets and docks. Their Unique Unit: Geuzen at the Castle (a halberd unit that has anti-cavalry bonuses and conversion immunity along with the charged ability which lets them capture an enemy building that's on 40% health or less and when used on units fires 2 shots from their brace of pistols, and an alternate attack mode with a sword that increases their movement speed and swaps their bonuses to anti-archer and the elite upgrade comes with a second alternate attack mode with a hand cannon allowing their bonuses to apply to infantry) and the East Indiaman at the Dock (A cannon galleon which can transport units). Their Castle Age Unique Tech: Humanism: Changes the cost incurred when a villager converts and enemy unit from 100 Gold to 100 Food and 100 Wood and removes the Gold Cost from all University Techs. Their Imperial Age Unique Tech: East India Company: Gives all villagers, buildings, trade carts, trade cogs, fishing ships and transport ships a hand cannon so while they have a slight reduction in their movement speed they can fight with a Blunderbuss (which fun fact is from the Dutch for "Thunder Pipe") and trade routes with other players generate Food and Wood as well as Gold. While they don't have access to the Knight Line or Elite Skirmisher, I was wondering if they were somewhat overpowered.

Hey SotL, I think you should consider changing the efficiency breakpoint for Faith to 6-7 pallys since conversions are worth double the original cost of the unit, as your opponent gains control.

Great vid

I never thought about it but there are are a lot of anti monk techs in the monastery. Even the one that lets you convert other monks is an anti monk tech

If you want catch relics asap, make 19 militia and a siege tower that can drive the monk everywhere 😀

I'd love to see one video of top 10 monk civs. The winner would be either Aztec, Spanish or Teuton

Heresy needs also caculate the resource that conversion gives to your opponent,which is critical especially for something expensive and destructive like siege onager

For the sake of the argument. It would been good to see how quick you get relics in area, which is a very common situation. You can do 3 scenarios: Fervor->two monks, Monk->Fervor->Monk and Monk->Monk->Fervor. Comparing the times of those would been handy to show in a real example how effective it really is.

I had a very similar list. I'd just switch Illumination above Theocracy and Herbal medicine above Faith.

I feel like Faith and Heresy are relics (ahem) of the old 75 pop cap days, when two or three conversions could really swing a battle.

While I love your videos and I enjoyed this one a lot, I think you're under appreciating the value of converting units putting Faith in number 9. The price of the tech is not always the best way to consider its value. A group of 4 or 5 monks can really change the outcome of a battle and steamrolll the rest of the game. Faith can change the entire battle, and it doesn't matter if you end up with all the resources to make Paladins but without time or stables to do so.

feels to me like Theocracy should be higher given that it's the only way you'll ever be able to use monks in large-scale fights

I love monks dude exspecially early castle or as Bohemians in Imp

When it comes to faith and heresy, I think there is more than just the value of the units. Some of your units, if converted, can deal significant damage to your other units or mess things up, ie draw fire of onagers, or kill valuable units.

One thing to add about Redemtion and which makes it an insane tech is that it opens up the charge up trick with buildings: you can have your monks converting random buildings to charge up their conversion and your opponent can no longer attack your monks even with light cav or eagles because they'll be converted instantly

I'm more intrested about the deselecting out of a group already converting and getting many convertions in a similar time that's so crazy dude.

Perfect video to push my idea for a Vatican Civilization, with a Bishop as unique Unit.

good job ^^

who dares to make his / her own ranking after the lord spirit just made this video :D

Hey Law, Spirit of the Guys here

4:32 Unsurprisingly Malay are the only civ where I recall heresy being part of a deliberate strategy in top pro level games (used by Mr. Yo).

As a Burmese lover I often get sanctity and fervor even just for collecting relics.

I think last year during Wandering Warrior, there has been a game during which Heresy decided the game, can't remember which one though. But it's rare yeah

I've often wondered how effective an archer civ could be if they brought villagers to the front lines to build buildings to act as temporary walls for the archers to hide behind. It sounds like something an AI would do.

Fervor should get points for making monks easier to use in all contexts. Since a faster monk is a monk that can keep up with your army better and reach enemies for conversions better. They just get to where they need to be faster, making it a semi-invisible but global improvement to everything they do. The shortcomings of using it for relics, I think, undermines the extremely broad value it provides for such a cheap tech. The only tech that I think is better than it is redemption.

Personally prioritize Sanctity and Fervor (though you make a good argument to delay it). Then I get Faith and Heresy if I start hearing excessive conversion sounds. I don't often play monks too much in an active role, though it is something I probably should try more.

Having ridiculous units such as the conq & mangudai be able to give more arrows, means that Herbal can be amazing on the front lines... Imagine 6 elite skirms trying to hit a conquistadour and 1 misses, that conq now garrisons, heals to full & adds extra arrows to kill your skirms/continue hitting your base. The fact that some ranged units are just too good at adding arrows can I think add a lot to that tech's utility. And Fervour is really nice, as you can better manoeuvre your monks around supporting cavalry such as Lith knights who can take out a scout/light cav before it kills the monk off - ALMOST ALWAYS EASILY PAYTING for itself after just 1 monk is saved (100 gold + faster relic in the bank & the monk is still running around converting and so on).

So useful

I tend to pick up every monk tech I've got (although as Bulgarians I rarely make it farther into Castle then it takes to pick up Arson) but I've often found a solid use case for Heresy if I've got lots of Konniks against someone like Aztecs. But as Bohemians, who have them all, I don't notice much of a difference from Faith, Fervor, or Herbal Medicine. I'd rather have 10 more Monks than a tech to heal 6x faster for sure.

can you do a video on monk micro tricks to improve monk conversion efficiency and micro time selecting control groups?

I make sure to add two-to-four Monks when I play Byzantines. I’ll be sure to stop picking up Fervor as often and put that gold towards something else. Thanks!

I think Heresy can actually be pretty useful in all-in situations to keep your opponent's monk defense from completely turning the tables on you. That may sound strange, since the tech is expensive and you'll have less economy if you're pursuing an all-in attack, but the thing is that gold gathers quickly, so if you're putting all your villagers on gold and food/wood to spam army, you can find yourself with a lot of it banked up. There was one Nomad team game where I was Spanish and tasked with handling a player 400 ELO better than me. He resorted to monk defense to fight my conquistadors, and I realized letting a player who's better than me steal conquistadors could be disastrous, so I researched Heresy. Once he saw I had it, he gave up on the monks entirely and switched to skirm defense, which was much less of an offensive threat than the monks could have been.

Herbal Medicine should be at least 5th if not higher. It helps defensively and it helps offensively with castle drops. While your units are healing they can still contribute extra arrows and cycle out when they are healed or the battle is over. A monk can be sniped by a single light cav before he contributes any value at all but HM is hard to not have it pay fore itself. Early, cheap, potentially high impact tech that will almost always pay for itself? Yes please.

It seems like you based every situation, or at least most, on a multiplayer monk mash. I would think that monks might have more versatility beyond Castle Age rush and that utility might cause the list to change.

Great, now i wanna play Monks.

I know it will be too strong at higher levels but can we think of an aggressive stance for monks so everytime a unit enters the conversion radius monks start converting. The pro would obviously be it would be less micro intensive. But the disadvantage is that if you're not paying attention you might be converting a random pikeman in front and not the Mangonel at the back.

I agree with your list almost entirely, except I'd switch Illumination with Fervor. I find the speed really does make a difference, to the point that when I don't get it, my monk plays usually fail. Could just be that I'm too used to the speed with fervor.

Faith and Heresy in my opinion are for big lategames with more than 2 players on the field. If they didn't exist, you'd one day see a monk army arriving at your doorstep, with absolutely no way to stop it (Because you are at pop cap right?). At least no feasable ones. These 2 techs while not a top priority, exists to prevent monk spam in such an event.

I'd switch 1 and 2, but otherwise agree entirely. To improve my monk play, I civ picked Aztecs for a while and played FC monks. Dropped about 200 elo at first, but gradually got it back. Block printing is insane. I would always get fervor quickly, but mostly for a cheap +5hp as Aztecs, after redemption and sanctity which I always got as quickly as possible.

One cool tech that could be included to the sarrassin civ is converts, when you rearch it will spawn a random castle unit from any civ ever conquered by muslims in the town center every 5 min

Faith is extremely useful if you're an elephant civ/having war elephants as Persians, you need that time to either get out and use ranged units to kill Monks or avoid losing 13 elephants in a push suddenly, losing the whole game

As a low elo and casual player, my top 3 is #1 Theocracy, #2 Atonement and #3 Redemption. The combination of all three has a mental load impact that makes playing with Monks FEEL better and more fun. After that, your list is probably spot on, except id even maybe put Fervor even lower. I always thought : "make the slowest unit a tiny bit faster, thats not worth it"

Would some notification when units are healed up help? Or maybe a queue for where to go when healed?

Converting a monk only keeps its faith after you convert it if it is not in the process of converting something, or if you have theocracy.

i kinda wish monks were more viable when units start massing, its cool to see the variety in the game

Converting a siege workshop is hilarious if they don’t realise during your main attack. Just queue up tons of rams stored inside and then release them

I've always included monks in my infantry attack groups.

Redemption should also get bonus points because if a Meso civ monk converts a stable, you can produce uniqie cavalry from them called Xholots warrior.

nice!

For the tech icon for Heresy...what does the text in the book say?

Agreed with most of the Techs if we are talking Monk-Civ or for a Monk strategy. But I would put Faith and Heresy much higher since i rarely use Monks for ... Monk stuff, and rather just pick up a Few relics and be done. Thus i appreciate getting general unit upgrades from ther Monastery. Or to put it differently, im up against Monks much more often than i am using them.

Your game looks so good. Is that the UHD mod?

For me atonement is at the bottom and fervor and herbal are a tie probably as 1st at least for my play style and strategies.

Herbal medicine would be op if you could regarrison units inside barracks/archery/stable, but its just not. Only have a few castles, town center is (hopefully) not on the frontlines, towers don't hold many people and are kind of bad by the time you get the tech.