I just want to shout out Hera’s gameplay channel too. The amount of work that Hera and his editing team has been putting in lately to give us so many high level games and educational content is actually insane. This man is such a blessing to the AOE2 community. 🤍

-20% food for incas in feudal? Scout rush incoming. Oh, wait :D

Great video Hera. Also think Ethiopians will have a surprising jump in power

Hey Hera, amazing video as usual. I wanted to tell you that I think the editing is AMAZING. The units/buildings you show when talking about a specific civ add a lot to the video, it's so well done. Also the messages in white that appear showing different info. Keep it up!

I think Ethiopians deserve a spot in this list, the new royal heir tech suddenly give them acess to highly mobile options in the late game. Once u get it after opening crossbow civs like Huns depending on mouned units straight up die to this tech, I think it's so op that it will receive a nerf in one of the next patches

Awesome video. Thanks for civ update. Editing and graphics are top tier.

great video: information-dense yet short and highly helpful/digestible. Thank you very much, Hera.

Really great video! A lot of stuff happend in the new patch and it is really nice to get a qualified overview of some of the mayor changes. Thanks as always for your awesome content Hera!

2:36 something is wrong with the farms here it is only possible do have no gap with the pinwheel technique, this is an unreachable beauty standard for farms 😡

Nice video!!! Ethiopians can be also in honorable mention hehe

Thanks for the amazing content as always ❤

Cant wait to see the KOTD5 strats

High quality content man, keep it up!

Super clean text presentation in this video! Some thin outlines around the arrows might help them stand out from the background better, but that's a minor nit-pick.

Well done!

We all know the most buffed civ in the patch is the Persians.

Sick rundown. Glad celts got a woad buff

I find that the Incas buff has more potential. For example, opening MAA into skirms or spears allows to save lots of food, so then you can transition relatively fast to play EW in castle, or even Kamayuks and stuff like that. At least that has worked for me in noob levels around 13++ 11

Que genio que sos Hera, increíble contenido!

Thanks for the video Hera, a good summary overall. I think it would have also been worth highlighting the changes to Serjeant. The elite tech is cheaper and they get more hp now - and are crazy good in imp especially (with 7/8 armour and 85hp). Also, I reckon Dravidians should have made this list. Are they the best civ on Arabia after this patch? Nope! but their cheaper barracks technologies synergises so well with this patch and the cheaper seige is no joke.

I see a new Hera video I click I give my like I am a simple man

As a certified infantry enjoyer, I am happy with these changes. Especially those for Goths, Vikings and Malay, all factions that I play often.

Nice.

Hera no. 1☝️

thoroughly discussed and nicely presented. BYW, what software you use for the editing of the video?

Donjon doesn't seem like a barrack alternative for Arabia. They're available after hitting feudal age and built almost twice slower than barracks. Feels like a big risk rather than an advantage. The castle speed reduction is also small, like 50 instead of 38 seconds when you build a castle with 6 villagers. Overall its only the mill bonus increase that seems solid. I'm surprised you didn't mention Slavs, Lithuanians and Dravidians.

Malians a little OP should be 10% more gold instead of 15%.

thanks for the video, im wondering, do i have to subscribe on your ttv channel to see some updated build order guide?

Underrated effect of the Malay inf armor upgrades: their spearmen will be much harder to deal with for scout civs

I agree that gambesons will rarely solve the problem with longswords. what counts in midgame is cost efficiency, where the option to pay for another technology helps little. instead of gambesons you could mostly have 3 more units which can often be better. what it mostly might do is that it makes eagle play very unviable, i think. swords can now not only cripple eagles but also dive under town centers and counter attack deadly. reacting with xbow will be hard then, because archers always need a critical mass to do anything and against gambesons they also require 7 attack (3 techsat least) to become effective

I expected a shoutout to the Slavs because it's actually possible to do the full longswords castle age play with them with the free supplies and gambesons, you just need to open Crossbow first with your massed archers in feudal age, but it's still super easy to go longswords if you opened MAA into archer so it's quite a strong play imo

im shocked there is no mention of the dravidian bonus -33% wood on siege is pretty massive

I would personally rank as: Malians, Incas, Malay, Vikings, Goths. But great list anyway everyone has his opinion

Feel Slavs will be big post buff. I'm liking them already

I would also add that the elite scorpion discount work well with civs with bonus like the khemer or the celts, in mass they are scary for infantery and archers. I like to use that niche unit ^^

I think another honorable mention for the Spanish is, that since their cannon galleons already fire a lot quicker projectiles, now also splash damage got added, this turns their cannon Galleons into true monsters, as you can take down both ships and units on land as well as they have almost no chance to escape your 15 range bombard terror

I thought Dravidians would be Nº1. Not only they got the crazy siege discount but they also benefit from all the new infantry buffs on top of having them half the price!

Because of the rounding up, the Malian bonus is even better before wheelbarrow because vils drop 12 so it's actually 20%

Won a game with goth today, Hera content is the Best

free Gambesons, cheaper Pikeman upgrade, cheaper Siege, cheaper Castles, Boyars cheaper than Knight line, cheaper Druzhina… and not even mentioned honorably, cries in Slavs :( 11

Tbh I expected an honourable mention for Dravidians considering that wood discount for siege is quite good especially as it also count trebs

Please continu the beginner series HERA... LOVE FROM UR SUBSCRIBER

I don't see how the donjon barrack skip into stable thing is a benefit (besides saving 175w early game). Isn't that time in feudal age where you can't immediately make a stable? If you made a barracks at 50% to feudal age, right as you click up you can instantly make a stable, but by not building a barrack and doing the donjon -> stable thing instead, it delays the stable uptime. Am I missing something? I see the benefits like having a defensive structure for what is essentially free, but I also see downsides.

Burmese Elephants costs -10 food and militia got gambesons... It feels small but it's a nice buff.

isn't the Mayans bonus 'resources last x percent longer' the same as goths 20% more hunt?

How about Ethiopians? Outpost not costing stone is awesome! Was always a bit messy, to build outposts and wont be able to make 2 more tcs

You keep saying this about gambesons longswords being entirely unviable but you should remember, a FU knight has 4 pierce armor, and now so do FU longswords. it takes a small amount of time to set up as opposed to knights, but once it is you can create such a number of them that their low speed wont matter. they do actually move slightly faster than crossbows, so while someone could hit and run against them all day they don't really die fast enough before the second wave comes in and they do still get some damage in even if crossbow player is constantly microing. For high level play you have to worry about being walled out but I mean, that's the same story with knights too. and im not here to tell anyone how to play, all I'm saying Hera is you should absolutely give it a try a couple of times if you have not already.

Important question. If a goth player lames me in an 1v1 and I am playing mongols I just got boosted by hime, right? Cause the extra food applies on the kill and not by who is collecting, or doesn't it?

For me, it has to be Lithuanians Now they have 100 Food, so instead of always going into a Drush, there's a chance it'll be actually used economically Now they no longer have to fork between either contesting Relics OR Booming in the mid-game. They can do both, with contesting Relics into Booming having a natural flow Camels ruin their Knight play. But guess what's cheaper? The Pikeman upgrade. As it is due to the extra speed, their Pikes could always keep up with their Knights Top 5 civ for sure

Its crazy that malay got both the 1st and 2nd spot on his list.

IMO honorable mentions (or even the top list) should have included Japanese. They got some buffs overall, but also have just become comparatively better in hybrid and nomad maps, due to competitors losing at least some of their starting bonus.

Every civ I play against is the most buffed.

I expected to hear Ethiopians. You musta not played with or without them lately. The unit comps are fantastic

i know the patch is the new hot thing, but, have you noticed most changes in your top 5 are somewhat related of the Korean bonuses? And yet they aren't that high in the meta? Why's that in your opinion?

no dravidians? surprising. Big buffs to elephant archers, gambesons and heavy siege discount.

Hera I think Spanish got nerfed even on arabia, I think the -1 pierce armor means they do far worse vs CA and can't dive TCs to snipe enemy mangos as easily.

I thought Ethiopian is gonna get the honorable mention cause new Royal heirs make shower a little bit tankier against cavalry.

Wasn’t the Sicilian bonus damage reduction also reduced from 50% to 33%? Pretty big negative change for them

I wonder how much stronger is a man at arms rush into archers with malay

Want to note that if you have the unique tech (giving +5 armor), if you are late late game Bulgarian 2-handed swordsman dont take any dmg from hussar making them unkillable in a no gold scenario. Bulgarians are not known for a good late game but in trash wars they are the king in my opinion.

Surprised ethiopians didn't make the list

I would place Vikings and Celts in my top 5 and remove Malay to honorable mention. Granted any changes can change the meta and surprise someone. Both Vikings and Celts benefit more from gambesons to survive arbalest.

vikings are great but they should release a full viking campaign. I want to raid hard.

I'm predicting - Malay, Dravidians, Malians, Vikings and Incas.

Malians is Top 5 now.

Im a low elo guy but 15% faster gold mine extraction is that a crazy thing ? Its like having 7 villagers on the gold and adding 1 more villagers with another civ.

Are poles still broken/good after this patch? I haven't seen them a lot in recent tournaments

Regarding the Malians, their gold does last a little bit longer (15%), because the villagers drop off their gold roughly 1 second later than generic villagers.

Goth + 20% hunt is really strong: 2 boars and 2 deers gives 1000food and 20% of that is 200food. Even better than the old Lithuanian bonus

What's better, the turks or malians gold bonus

I feel like Britons got nerfed by this

Sicilians are now a low elo powerhouse with the offensive Donjon drops, its so rediculous I went from 900 to 1100 without a single loss. People just dont know what to do against it.

Malians actually don't drop off 15% more gold, just run a test and u will know, only mining and carrying 15% gold more

I’ve tried malians and new bonus just make vills carry 12 gold instead of 10 so not really a big deal, I don’t know if that’s a bug or not did u guys tried ?

Why hasn’t anyone talked about the Incan Drush? Surely that could factor in since the -15% savings kicks in starting at Dark Age.

i think dravidians should replace sicilians, all rest agreed

what does "the meta" means?

yes britons get nerfed "nerf britons pls"

Again, no love for Teutons😤

Malians is/was too similar to Turks. Now I think Malians kind of turn into better version of Turks.

What a bogus patch. Vikings were already A, Malian buff is way too good. They are both OP civs now. Why not boost the countless C civs?

FIRST

140 plus 20% of 140 🤣🤣 (lazy viewers make some effort do the math)