Me who didn't play this game in years: "Yeah, how good are the donjons?"

Donjons also look prettier so they will give your base more style points.

Something worth mentioning is that because the Serjeant's are a military unit, when tasked to build or repair a Donjon they do not flee like a villager would when they get hit, this avoids the issue of having to spam click villagers to build/repair while under pressure, which i've seen in many a pro game.

It's also worth mentioning that serjeants don't get interrupted when taking damage while building which let's you force up a tower where villagers might fail to do so.

The Donjon Rush, not to be confused with the Don Juan Rush

Historical fact: in Sicily there are a lot of towers along the coast, that were built during the Norman-Arab era and during the spanish era for defensive and comunications purposes (using fire and smoke).

Another high melee armor unit! Leitis: It's time to shine.

Donjons are extremely well balanced for their uses, Sicilians opness comes from 50 percent bonus damage reduction which essentially makes all of their knights to cataphracts

Something else to note with the Serjeant: they are not affected by Treadmill Crane, so Villagers can build Donjons faster than them once that tech is researched.

"The guard tower also has it's own upgrade cost, that requires building a university." Me, a koreans main:"Huh?"

The Imperial Age Serjeant is the Missing link Between the Housecarl and Teuton knight, Change my mind.

Linguistic donjon fun facts : Despite their similarity and etymological closeness, the English word "dungeon" and the French word "donjon" don't share the same meaning. As illustrated in game, a "donjon" is what the English would call a "keep". Under the donjon which was located in the core of a castle were the underground cells called "oubliettes" (related to the verb "oublier" -> "to forget" because you could throw someone there and forget about them) or "cachots" (from the verb "cacher"-> "to hide" because you could just hide the people you didn't like in there) called "dungeon" in English. The similarity between both words lead to some mistranslations*, notably with the game "Dungeons and Dragons" translated in French as "Donjons et Dragons" when it should have been "Cachots et Dragons". This lead to other games translating dungeons as donjon even though the two words shouldn't have the same meaning at all as one is underground while the other is a tall building. Now you might be thinking "Why is this guy talking about French, these are the Sicilians." Well... while the period AoE2 takes place in is vague, this is definitely a French word and the reason it made its way there is because Sicily got invaded by the Normands, basically vikings who had settled in northern France (you've probably heard of Normandy in the context of WW2, that's why the region is called that way) and other bits of Europe. They stayed there, adopted the language and then decided to look for warmer places and better looking beaches. Serjeant is also a French word, although the modern spelling would be "sergent". As you can probably guess, it translates into "sergeant" although the modern meaning as a military rank is probably quite different from the historical one. *Well... Not exactly a mistranslation. See comment by ResusprimeIX below.

Reminds me of the Norse in AoM. Always liked that some of their military units could also build structures.

Let's be honest, this was just SotL flexing Japanese as the superior civ again

i think youre missing a very huge bonus wich is that - apart from the very first donjon - you dont need villagers for it, meaning you can essentially create as many additional villagers as you have in the front, because you can replace those with serjeants and send them home to work instead.

Haven’t played this game in 10 plus years; so happy to see it’s still going strong and things are being added. This was my childhood, just spamming the cars that shoot stones

I think it's worth noting the difference between playing with AI vs playing with other players. The Donjons are incredibly effective when used against AI in tower rushes because it's hard to set up a bunch of towers, keep villagers alive, *and* defend towers from sudden vill rushes. The donjon sidesteps that challenge by having 'vills' (sergeants) defending themselves and donjons easily, and they allow you to easily push into dangerous areas of the AI base. Human players are far better at simply building away from your towers, getting a military, and swinging in after taking a bit of a loss. Similar to how Teutons are great against AI but not humans because humans know to literally just avoid your teutonics and hit your economy.

Player: "Alright Serjeant, since I converted you, build me one of those donjons!" Serjeant: "A what?" Player: "...CRUD."

The word "Donjon" triggers my brain to think of the old "Oh Long Johnson" cat meme

why do I keep watching those videos, I don't play AoE2 or plan to either, but damn are they interesting to watch regardless. Kudos, SotL for making great content

Back in Sicily, there's a way of doin things. Sure it might be a little more than usual, but so long as you pay Don Jon for his... _protection,_ your farmers won't befall any unfortunate accidents. But Don Jon also rewards loyalty; continued investment in Don Jon means you'll find his sergents willing to take an arrow for you from time to time, and goin to the more dangerous places so your villagers don't have to.

Anyone noticed that little tower attached to the Donjon? So it's still a Watch Tower but without needing to pay their upgrades

Most prominent case for the Donjon Tower rush, is that after dropping the first Don on their stone supply, you can start to replace villagers with seargants and use front villagers to gather the enemies resources faster than what you would with other civs.

I always die to a decent tower rush, so I was surprised (and proud) when I beat my first Donjon rush. They definitely aren't OP.

BRING BACK OLD INTRO!! Not gonna stop until its done! Great video as always keep it up

Now that the donjon is here, where is the dragon??

Ya Spirit! My light in the tunnel of pandemic blackness! Thanks for all you do!

Something I think wasn't covered here - the fact that it takes up 4 squares technically means it has more effective range than the watch tower line, right?

I've gotten back into AOE2, I used to play frivolously as a youngster without paying any mind to what I was actually doing or how to be better, but now that I'm older I find it vastly more interesting than I had first thought. So, that said I've done a good bit of research online and hands down SOTL is the literal best at giving you information about the game.

I wonder how they are called in the french version. Since Keeps are already called Donjons in french.

1:25: I appreciate that all the Serjeants are hammering in unison. It's the little details that make the video :)

The Sicilians are that weird new civ that people collectively narrow their eyes at wondering if it's OP or not.

Without seeing the video I leave a like, thats how much confidence I have in the quality of your content.

>Donjons are very powerful in Imperial Age Me: "Imperial Age tower rush is a go."

Me: havent played the game in more than 10 years and havent watched anything about it KZfaq: Here's a video about The Donjon in aoe2. Take a look.

Thank you spirit for the amazing work all those years, you are incredible Love math, love your videos Just keep doing it, you're a monster

Serjants should have been called "Donjon Keeper"

It's worth noting that wasn't mentioned in the video that when a serjeant is attacked while building, he won't hop off and walk around like a villager would.

that has to be one of the best anti-trash units in the game.

0:48 this is from my game the other day hahaha, I cannot believe I am featured on the channel! I have to learn my lesson and wall my donjons.

@ 6:55 I think it's supposed to say -2 attack instead of +2 Good video man, as always :)

Man, feels like I haven't seen any of your videos for ages. I blame YT's recommended letting me down.

So much have changed that I thought of during the video now: Donjon cost reduced to 175 stone instead, allowing for repairs. Sicilians start with 300 stone as a civ bonus Longswordsmen have one meele armor now in base armor, manking them a little less bad in comparison unique tech makes 35 instead of 50 serjants incan tower rush is nefed away, and is no longer relevant.

I haven't played AOE II in forever. But I find myself watching all of these videos and competitive gameplay from T90 obsessively the last few months

7:00 Should be -2 attack though I hope you cover the bonus damage aspect as well maybe PS: The movement speed is also same for both units

+200iq with every Spirt Of The Law video watched.

Hey SOTL when you are going to do Burgundian and Sicilian civilization overview?

the Don Juan, notable for rising up as tall as a tower but being even larger and more impressive.

Donjin, Donjen, DonJohn, Donjan, or my favorite: Dungeon.

That bird at 3:33, lol!

I discovered your channel a few days ago and already I've watched a ton of your videos and now I want to buy aoe2 definitive edition cus it just looks really nice and is everything I wanted to be better in aoe2 hd and normal editions

The donjon reminds me of that onyon video where its someone just saying dungeon wrong.

I think one other advantage of Donjon rush not mentioned is that you don't have to send any vills forward, so no eco sacrifice.

6:55 I think you meant -2 attack for the serjeant. Also, I feel like the cost of the serjeant is a big weakness in feudal age, especially when you consider that they trade evenly with M@A, but are more expensive than samurai. Plus, you have to divert vils to stone in order to build the donjons in the first place, which makes it that much harder to sustain production of serjeants. I feel like if they cost 50f 30g they would be a viable alternative to M@A in feudal, once you factor in the effect of things like supplies, a second barracks, or a stable can allow someone to pretty easily pump out enough units to shut down a donjon rush, without having to deviate to much from a typical feudal eco.

I think they work pretty well during imperial age. Drop them close to enemies, have some sergants attack, some repair it, and the donjon create more sergants. Bring trebuchets from the back to clear out buildings, and drop more donjons as you destroy more.

Hi spirit!! Love your channel. The civilization pick UI is missing 3 spots, how about a video going over what Civilizations are plausibly left for the age of empires 2 timeline.

seems like you would do some strategy and gain map control with some donjons, but then to finish off an opponent, you could use your unique tech and then flood the opponent with serjeants and a late game donjon rush and continue to spam serjeant from the newly built donjons

Man your vids always brighten my day.

2 years later youpudding make history with the all in fc donjon and sargeants rush

Would really like to see a video about how to counter mass Searjant! In Imp i really wonder how well Byzantine Cataphacts can do, especially considering the MASSIVE cost difference.

I feel that the donjon rush is more like a teamplay tactic, a mate secures a beachead while you build them up and after that you can take over the attack.

No one pointed out yet that it should be -2 attack at 6:52? Ok fine, I'll do it myself then

Good video about the Japanese. What was the other civ you kept mentioning though?

I think that in the tower rush, you should consider that you can have all villagers working so in teamgame maiby its easier to transition from early castle agretion into something else

Law guys! Spirit of the Hey here.

i feel like serjeants should do extra damage vs buildings. Kind of like a sapper unit that can build foward post to siege defenses

3:14 I see the devs made a pretty nice damage balance there

Wooooo I love towers!

Is the range of a building measured from the edge of the foundation, or centre point? I.e. does a donjon cover a slightly larger area than a tower, but less than a krepost?

There is another factor, the psychological one. Donjons are both more intimidating and a lot more rewarding to build. A tower can feel like a dead building if the enemy just avoids it. The donjon however is also a military production building. This lets you ramp up infantry production, and lets it respond to sige like rams on its own without support. Honestly, building donjons and luring enemies into their range is the greatest joy of the Hautevilles campaign.

The Donjon rush sounds like a shipment card from AoE3 was adapted to AoE2. Hoping this presages that architecture and town design is a factor in AoE4. (Also, that we get engineer units to make some buildings and not have to send villagers to the frontlines.)

First crusade is awesome. You can get 250 in a 200 pop game, and all of the sergeants appear simultaneously.

I've been wondering if Serjeants can repair or build other buildings, or is it just the Donjon?

Sicilians: *litteraly has a military unit able to build.* Other civs: what kind of witchcraft is this !?

Put the intro song as an outro and everybody gonna watch till the end

Sarjeants look funny and kinda cute hammering the ground! 😂

Do I understand it correctly that while having the same range as tower the Donjons can cover a larger area around them since the range is counted from the edge of the building and Donjons have a larger base?

What? No SOTL theme music? :/

Shouldn't the Donjon have 1/2 tile more range on a practical level because of the additional size? At least for light of sight and area coverage? Is range measured from the center or edge of a building?

I really miss the INTRO with Goth's strategy and Karambitcoin's value ...

I'm amazed how well balanced the new civ is.

I think it may have been worth testing the damage a Donjon inflicts on melee units as they attack the base and compare that to the damage a tower does to melee units, also testing the speed at which the Donjon is destroyed compared to the tower line. The larger base means more units attacking it, so it will be destroyed faster, but does its higher attack counterbalance that, or does the survivability of the tower mean it actually does more total damage to the units at its base. It would be interesting to check that I think.

Bonus against fortifications, extra garrison, and creates infantry that can make more… so it’s an entrenching specialist structure? Lots of aggressive forward fortifications to push the enemy back slowly but surely, deploying more builder soldiers to keep it up and offering a refuge for units if the enemy attempts to counterattack, while blowing apart the enemy’s attempts to entrench themselves. Kind of a weird niche to replicate World War I in Age of Empires, but if it works…

Hey SOL, can you compare the Cataphract to the knight line?

6:52 i think there is a little error. Serjeant's attack compared to champion is -2, not +2.

What's the unit at 4:47? Not the monk, the one being shot by the donjon.

You say that in Castle Age it fires 7 extra arrows. Is that in addition to the two baseline arrows for a total of 9 or is it 1+7 for a total of 8, the garrison only adding 6 because one extra arrow is already there?

Battering ram battering a field is the quintessence of RTS games. 0:14

Is there any unintended bug or something similar where if you build donjon with a villager and the unique unit effect the speed? Or does it do nothing?

nice

Wondering about Tigui TC compared with donjon, which one will be better?

can you also compare their speed to other similiar infantry units? they feel a bit more slower.

I have a kid's mind, I basically bought the dlcs because I saw this building. Ooooh cool little fortress, I want it.

6:52 +2 attack? isnt it -2 attack compared to the champion?

So if you want to tower rush with this, you kinda need a fast castle timing as well. That's a pretty cool combination - probably not very viable, but tower rushes shouldn't be strong anyway.

Despite being in the castle age, my donjon in #1 of the campaign struggles against attacks containing only 3 mamlukes and 2 camels from the pirates.

I haven't played aoe2 in a decade but this is interest af

I think they need a bit more HP tbh to justify their cost. At least in the Imperial Age. Otherwise they are pretty great.

What is that red unit on the right at 4:37??? it looks like an Orthodox version of the Monk????

With the introduction of these new mechanics, can we finally fix Siege tower so that they can in someway, transform into a building next to a wall to allow free flow of units going over a wall?