The fact that Janissaries (atleast for elite) didn't get their iconic hats in DE is still something I'm not over, would've been worth the price of the elite upgrade alone

When I was young I thought Janissary was a month I hadn't heard of

This game is a great historical learning tool. As everyone knows, a 4th-century Gothic warlord's personal retinue would easily defeat a disciplined battle-line of rifle-armed janissaries.

I don't care about their numbers, I just want their hats back!😪

I would have loved if you had also specifically compared bohemian (access in castle age) and burgundian (+25% damage increase) handcannons with the (elite) janissary. Especially the Bohemians are a very similar comparison as a handcannons rush plays out very similar to a castle drop into jannissaries.

I kinda figured it wasn't going to happen, but I was really hoping that the royal janissary unit from the editor would've made an appearance for purely comparison sake. In a video about how effective janissaries are in normal game, I know why it didn't, but it would've been funny.

I don't understand why jannisarries have the lowest accuracy among all gunpowder units. Before the nerf, I thought like okay, they are long range units. Now they lost their range. Spanish have conquistator, Bohemians can create hand cannoneers at Castle Age, jannisarries are not special anymore.

Spirit did fire a lot of infomation in this video, luckily he has 100% accuracy.

Low accuracy is a double sided sword, in low number unit fights its bad, but if you focusfire with overkill its good

How did they know my one weakness was a bullet from their gun!?

Am gonna ponder if the AoE II: DE devs are gonna read the "Janissaries need their hats back" comments. This aside, another entertaining vid, SotL.

In my wargaming days - I played Ottomans a lot. My Janissaries won me so many games, although I was playing a 15th century list where they are still archers, with a Serbian ally for some knights.

Main unseen strength of Janissary is 0 frame delay like old Mangudai and Kipchak. Current Castle Age Janissary doesn't compensate castle requirement (Knight+Cav Archer+Light Cav is simply better) anymore but Elite Janissary is still very strong but it needs little survivability, 50 hp is a bit low for 55f 60g unit .

One thing to consider against the janissary is that all the resources sunk into upgrading crossbows also benefit cav archers. Turk cav archers are among the best and if you consider that you can easily transition into cav archers from crossbows then one major advantage of age 3 jans over xbows (saved res on techs) is made iffy.

Because they are castle unit I found going only Janissaries takes too long to mass while you are in your power spike. So in Imperial Age I always mixed Janissaries and Hand Cannoneers. They mostly use the same upgrades and complement each other a bit.

I always had problems countering Janisarries, so I am very happy for this nice video!! Thank you :))

Compared to the janissaries from aoe3 and aoe4 (where they're beefy frontliners that wrecks cavalry), the aoe2 janissary is more of an all purpose glass cannon.

I used to watch u back in 2011-2013 then I got a new desk and lost my desktop... I had the aoe collection or something, started watching again like 3 years ago. 10/10 every video I watch is nostalgic for me.

i feel this was harsh, turks dont have too much going, that one range removal is a big deal. Especially in team games where turks can be actually viable

You focused on answering question if Janis are better choice over hand cannons, but I think you should be also comparing jannis to Turk CA as they are also alternate option for Turks to pair up with hussars in a late game. I think Elite Jannis could use some buff(s) in future patch at least in cost reduction and creation time or elese turk CA always will be chosse over jannis.

Losing that 1 range seems uncalled for. Wouldn't say they were overpowered considering it's the Turks. They only had a few things going for them in castle age anyway. They'd had that since the original game... not a change I like

Janissaries still feel quite weak compared to hand canoneers. Same hp and less accuracy for a more expensive unit doesnt make much sense. In many of your examples hand canoneers did much the same work save for the condottiere but well it a direct counter.

I feel like this is an unneeded nerf to turks. Main problem with turks was always that they were a resource intensive civ with high castle/early imp potential but if they could not win quick they would lose in the long run once out of gold. Feels like they're going to just plummet in the rankings now that castle jannisaries, their power unit, suck.

Jannisaries shoud have bonus against cavalry and more hp espescially in imperial version to make them closer to history accurate. And it also will fit with destroy of Byzantium and their UU

"They've done studies, you know. 50% of the time, it works every time." - AOE2 Janissaries

3:36 that one guy "janissary" missing the target by half a screen in distance so like 50-100 meter away "game meassurement". I guess janissariss problem is not accuracy, it is short " training" period.

I think they should add one range to the elite Janissary upgrade, which would make the upgrade even more appealing and would put them on equal ground with the late game India hand cannons… just my opinion :)

I didn't mind the nerf, but they should have given something else to Turks to compensate - the unit is OP in castle, not the civ. Give them something to support their CA or camel play.

lol reading subtitles ... its pretty much hit or miss, fitting for this video

Makes me remember all the sick paintball custom maps in original AOE2 online. Soldier store was also such a sick map.

It's just obnoxious that janissaries don't benefit from the vast majority of ranged upgrades but still take all the bonus damage as if they were an archer is silly. Janissaries have almost never been shown to be a crucial unit in higher end games. They're underpowered, overpriced, and truly an empty shell. Even if they were 90% accurate they would still rarely be built in competitive games. They should be either faster or even tougher as well as more accurate, then they may actually start to become fun and really shake up the stale meta.

"You get the sense that power spikes into gunpowder units are the Turk's whole deal" yup, checks out

I prefered the straight trajectory of old handcanon units, if they added collatedal effects where thw shot will travel an extra 3 tiles and can hit and damage anything in its way theyd be so much better, they can balance with reduced bonus and damage, this will mean u have to mass handcanon units for better effect against large groups of enemies which is how to use em

The people in charge of nerfs have NO idea what they're doing.

Video idea: how to effectively use the Mangonel line. I almost never use them because i end up killing my own units verses the enemy ones

Janissaries definitely need more buff so it will historically accurate bcs how powerful ottoman were and definitely they need those fancy hats

I feel like you are underselling the performance of janissaries against mangonels quite a bit... You only need 4 of them to oneshot a magonel and 40 xbow to oneshot a magonel. Same is true for villagers. And their high attack helps to brake walls or destroy buildings very fast. Also you cant dodge janissary shots like you can xbow/skirm shots

I would have liked the comparison between turk UU and cav archer

Nerfing castle age janissary was maybe the WRONGEST idea after all...Why should i create them ? No reason for this anymore.

"Emphasizing that high attack isn't everything." Ah, yes, the Rampardos theorem.

Me on Amazon Tunnel: "¿Por qué no los dos?"

I think they should buff the hp for castle age and imperial age to compensate for the castle age nerf. In imperial age you don't want to invest in a castle and produce instead of stuff like trebs. Maybe reduce some of the bonus damage too from skirms and anti-gunpowder bonuses. You need a reason to go jannisaries in castle age to justify using them in imp since they perform similar enough to hand cannons

Oh god that last pun at the end.. such a dadjoke :P

I think it's really important to keep in mind the larger picture when you talk about specific units, though it's mentioned at the end, you really have to take Janissaries in context with Turk light cavalry really helping round them out and padding over any weakness. You really shouldn't ever be going a mono-unit comp unless we're exclusively talking about early castle, in which case you're still talking about a "comp" of a castle, forward villagers able to build something else, and Janissaries. So basically, units really shouldn't ever be working alone, and I think that focusing more on how they incorporate into the broader Turk strategy is a lot more interesting than just taking everything in a vacuum, which we've also kind of seen when talking about Scorpions in the past with putting something in front of them, and talking about the Romans with their combination of Centurion and Legion.

All of these comparisons are when you get to middle to late castle age though. Most of the time when you play janissaries it’s early in castle or early in imp. Plus you don’t really play jani’s on an open map against archer-line

It was an unnecessary nerf IMHO

Spirit, given that we are all stats nerds, I think mayhe you should factor accuracy in your comparisons. For instance, instead of just comparing how many shots would it require to kill an unit, you can talk about how many "effective shots". You can do this very easily by considering a binomial distribution where the probability of success is the accuracy of the unit, and then calculating the likelihood that unit would be killed within a certain amount of shots

I miss the little hats....😢

Would have honestly liked to see a comparison with fu Inca eagles and check which of HCs or Jans do better :)

Maybe in Castle Age, it's better to use the cavalry archer, combined with other cavalry units, given that due to the unique tech, it becomes hard to kill and it outmaneuvers many units.

Still missing their important hat.

@10:54 seeing how the janissary missed his shot, definitely reminded us of how you were bandwagoning aoe4

So JANNI-raly you want to adapt at what units you want to use against what civ here as Turk. Overall they are a force to be reckoned with once Imperial Age first hits.

I love my Janissaries because I usually mass archer units. If I can get Hand Cannoneers and I know I'm going to have to go that far, I always plan to mass as many as possible. With micro, they can take out anything. If you split them into smaller groups, they'll automatically target different enemies and do much less overkill.

Now I wonder how SotL’s favorite civ is holding up these days. “How Good Are Samurai” when?

Janissaries: Who needs bonus damage when just hit harder 😂

If you are micro kiting use the split formation then attack move and they will break into two groups and each attack an individual target. It reduces overkill

I will never forgive developers since they dont give the hat that janissaries deserve. And the model exists in the game!

Janissaries were already expensive. It was also a pretty weak unit with low accuracy and low hp. Now it's even weaker. The winning rate of Turks in the game is also low. What does this nerf do??

Janissaries are my favourite Unique Unit. its true one can argue that Mangudai is better, and i love them too, but when i have my janissaries i feel happy and unstoppable :)

I used to play a strategy game back in the early 2000s called Tzar: The burden of the crown. In that game, Janissaries were Arabian units, Sword weilding Cavalries with great hp and dmg. They were even better than knights. It was a huge surprise to me as a kid playing Aoe2 to see them with muskets.

Buffing accuracy a bit might've been a good exchange for reducing range while still being a bit of a nerf. These guys are so expensive.

Thanks for posting this! Can you please do one for the Bulgarian Konniks? There's no counter to them!

"I fired a lot of information to you in this video"

Accuracy by volume!

How Good Are Janissaries? SOTL: No

That nerf kinda make them not that interesting anymore does it? Dev should trade it with something for that nerf. Idk maybe more accuracy or maybe give them inv. bonus like HC does.

I remember when I downloaded "Forgotten Empires" (now "The Forgotten"), it started to annoy me, that the units didn't have a more realistic speed when walking and reloading. Then a few other things, but I live.

Just a heads up here, as someone who watches with captions, very often some of your text gets cutoff on the bottom of the screen, not a big deal really, but worth lettting you know :)

I think the main thing that makes janisarys so great is, the turk composition and gameplan itself. Get a defensive castle start mak8ng janisarys and immediately hit hard. Once your enemy switches to skirms or siege you can easily make a stable and get a few light cav without any upgrades but having the +1p armor to distract and counter those. While the enemy tries to deal with those your janisary numbers get m9re and more dangerous until you eventually click up drop a castle on his face and start spamming hussars with the janis holding the critical positions of the map.

Check out the build time for Janissary--about 12 seconds with the game at Normal speed, 8 w/Conscription. Also, the Jans have an attack of 17 w/Elite Jans at 22. No single human unit can match that.

Hey Spirit, We love your work as always. But can you please bring back the intro for videos of 10+ mins ? I'm sure the majority will agree with me. And, the Romans' overview is overdue. Surely you are waiting to the nerfs that must come.. but wouldn't it be cool to have pre-nerfs short overview ?

Maybe we can discuss in one of the next videos which Civ has the best hand cannoneers. Now there are so many with Civ benefits or Unique Techs.

Unnecessary nerf to janissaries

don´t the bohemians have handcanons in castle age as well? How do these 2 compete with each other?

One thing I personally think is worth mentioning is that since janissaries have higher base damage, they're better against buildings than hand cannoneers. This helps especially against house walls or archery ranges. Keep in mind, though, I play AI matches for fun, not ladder matches.

Little known fact: they deal bonus 10 damage against the Ottoman Sultan

I think the no of shots vs different units should take into account the distance the unit is from the janissary, since it is quite inaccurate.

SotL, I haven't played AoEII in like three years. I don't think I will play again. I'm still watching your stuff. You should look into narrating school books or something.

Janissaries performing better against condottieries is an interesting result of stat balancing. I wonder if it's intentional or just happened naturally?

@Spirit Of The Law, could you maybe explain why the Coustillier (Burgundian castle unit) is oneshotting Cav-Archers? I saw it on TheVipers Stream Highlights 19, 1:30-2:00.

The main takeaway I got from this video is that Conquistadors' accuracy is too high for such an overpowered unit. Firing from foot is less accurate than doing so from atop an easily spooked horse? Also, losing 1 range did a lot of damage to the Janissaries' main appeal. They should get a bonus against something other than rams to make them better fit the Turkish army - why even bother paying so much for the upgrade in Imperial Age, not to mention all the castles, when you can train HCs the minute you finish going up the age, and those are more accurate and have an infantry bonus out of the box? It seems like too steep a cost for 5 more attack -against units you shouldn't be making gunpowder against anyway- and a bit more toughness for, again, a unit that shouldn't be at the frontlines. Now, maybe if the janissary had more armor, they could better represent the vanguard of the Ottoman army, but as squishy as they are, I doubt they'll ever fill that role.

I seen to remember jannies having hats? Didnt they have hats?!

I remember being confused when I first saw them cuz the icon had a white hat. At the time I had no idea why

2:50 Winged Hussar: "Am I joking?"

You missed on pointing out how Jannisaries deal very effectively with mangonels and scorpions, needing just four or five to one shot one of them instead of the several dozen shots the xbows need to do the same, even tho they are somewhat comparably squishy

Didn't pierce armor not help against gunpowder units in the past?

Turks should definitely get pikemen and onagers. Otherwise, janissaries and hand cannoers may be affected by artillery, or cavalry must be affected by the sipahi bonus, otherwise they turn into a dull race without gold.

You pop a janissary behind a wall. And everything but rams die. You do need skirmishers to keep archers busy, you do need cannons to keep siege away. But defensively where you can keep hostile units busy dealing with swarms of 'trash' units around the edges, their firepower always felt as good as Archers but with the bonus of oneshotting knights earlier into the death ball. Also ignored here is their firepower against magonels. It's a tough micro job but they do well against their Peirce armour. What i am less sure of is how does accuracy effect such large units where missed shots should still hit?

in CA, janisaries kill gates and stone walls easily, that is something that set them appart in arena for the longest time

i feel like, with micro being so dramatically effective, the hand cannoner advantage on infantry over the jannisaries becomes nullified, since infantry struggles because of their speed, so i would pick jannissaries everytime if possible.

AoE4 has entered the chat.

thanks, good insights

This is another unit for me in mist cases that is op when facing them but kind of rubbish when having them. I will probably never understand turks in AoE2… Imagine an alternative univers where Janissary are given to another civ? Which would be the best civ (synergize or cover weakness) More and more unique units come with a passive added value (shield, charge attack, passive improving other units etc.) Think of a patch in which all UU get such an ability. What would be a suitable for them or turks specificly? Finally, as always: congratulation to another high quality analytic video, keep going!

Currently, gunpowder units and infantry units have no place of their own. They are only used in extremely limited situations. For the majority of users, cavalry and xbow are always more useful and secure options. Developers really need to give them some real role.

Gunpowder should have minimum range and ignore armor. In reality and specially in medieval ages gunpowder weapons did significantly more damage than sword could do.

I feel like the only foot hand cannoneers I can use even mildly effectively is the Spanish version since they Fire faster and Spanish makes me wanna add monks to the back line.

Wait a second, I believe I remember Hand Cannoneers having a minimum range, like the Mangonel line, which made the Janissaries very much worth it in difficult-to-micro situations since they didn't play headless chicken. This was probably in the original game as well as in the 2010s HD remake, at least at some point. Is that not a thing anymore?

If you're seeing overkill, don't click on the unit. Use the "Stop" command.

Janissaries and Hand Cannoneers just don't seem to make a lot of sense. Sure if you have 20 of them, maybe, but that's a lot of resources.