Good ally civilization combos in team games (AoE2) 

I find Teutons and Mongols to be an underrated combination that complements each other. One has slow bulky melee units that are hard to kill and the other has exceptional bonuses for light cav units and cav archers. And for the ultimate meme combo, you can fill Mongol drill siege towers or Siege rams with Teutonic knights and send them straight into the enemy base and see chaos ensue.

It still remember years ago when some dude made Malian condos against me on Arena. It was super effective!

I would love to see a visualisation of the last teams trade bonuses vs a fully generic teams trade

Back during the original Age of Conquerors expansion, my friends and I had LAN parties all the time, playing AoE2 on teams. My brother and I were the best, so we always had to be against each other. He preferred Britons and Mongols, providing siege/archers to any team comp, and it was always a nightmare dealing with him. But I'm more the economist type of player, so I was usually the Spanish. I'd wall off half of the map and have 30-50 trade carts, and bankroll other teammates. One of our friends took up playing the Persians a lot because I could make my own army and still help fund his elephants, lol. The Spanish trade bonus is just so good. Having mounted healers also helped stretch my team's resources even further. I think the worst moment I had playing against my brother though was when his friend chose the Teutons, and loaded his Teutonic Knights into Mongol siege rams. They charged my walls on Black Forest, and drew my attention... While my his Siege Onagers blasted out and around the side through the woods into my base from behind. I very nearly lost, but had a back-up TC in my friend's base. I was able to bounce back and micro'd my hussars to each go after a different onager so most of them shot themselves, but my main base was almost gone before I'd even realized. I thought the war horns were about my front gate, as I was dealing with the horror of siege rams as fast as cavalry unloading Teutonic Knights. One of the hardest fights I ever faced, lol.

Aztec-Vietnamese alliance is my personal favorite, where Aztecs benefit from Imperial skirmisher+atlatl and Vietnamese can make more battle elephants thanks to 33% extra relic gold bonus.

Teutons and Britons. Absolute bulldozer melee and siege paired with longbows

I enjoy looking at these civ combos and going "How fitting or ironic is this combo?"

Goths, Huns, Britons, and Celts. I call this 4 player team Industrial Revolution with how much production they have for all non-castle military buildings. Byzantines are a great ally too with cheaper trash able to support any army comp from any civ by making up for any weakness the other player had while also providing 2x heal speed for Monks.

The meme over the thumbnail is unintentionally appropriate. Rest in power, Carl Weathers. 🕊

A very unique team I played with on islands once was Portuguese, Magyars, Cumans, and Saracens. Pretty sure we won that game since everyone made use of the Kipchaks and landed which made the other team panic from the number of free units being tossed into their bases. Granted everyone had about 3 to 4 castles plus someone managed to land a castle on someone's island which meant more Kipchaks to raid with and I think they got the castle next to their trade too. I can't remember it all as it was a while ago.

Nice unintentional tribute to Carl Weathers in the thumbnail

You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this video since the first top 10 Civ Combos. Thank you!

Bohemians, Spanish, Italians and Hindustanis for quadruple lategame trade bonuses and gunpowder armies. Outside of the gunpowder and trade, you get some monk play with the first two, some archery options with italians and bohemians, strong anti-cav options from Genoese Xbow, imperial camels and bohemian halbs. It's a very strong combo imo

Lunch time and SotL video drops. Nice.

I miss obsidian arrow... Old Saracens with foot archer +5 against building and Mayans arbalest with +8 against building. They can destroy even fortified walls pretty easily.

Armenian + Cuman feudal ram+longsword combo on arena is really great Also Armenian warrior priest with Fereters tech and Byzantines team bonus heals 8 HP / Second

Used to watch your vids when I was 20. Didn't watch for ages, now I'm 30 and you're still crushing it. Absolute legend 👍

One I theorised some time ago: Turks, Berbers, Hindustani, Gurjaras Together they have fantastic combined synergies for Hand Cannoneers + Camels + Genitors, all backed by great Bombard Cannons and some of their unique unit options. Basically it's the ultimate counter pick team, no matter what the enemy team tries they can theoretically hard counter it.

i love aztec & vietnamese, the imperial skirmirsher + plus 1 range and 1 attack for the aztec unique tech makes the skirmish so much better as trash unit..

For 4vs4 arena or other safe map, I've seen another amazing combo. You take Italians, 2 good slinging civs and Goths. Plan is to sling resources to Goths who rush imp and flood enemies with condotierro using resources slinged by team.

I would have also included Malay as an honorable mention for water Allies. They have some pretty solid naval bonuses and the docks shooting arrows is especially useful for coastal defence

I really like Incas + Chinese because the free Llama starts right between all the vills so you reduce your Chinese idle time to just 1 vil

This are the combos I had in mine for a while. 1) Walls+Monks: Mayans and Byzantines as Flanks with Teutons and Georgians as Pockets, Byzantines benefit the most I think, building/repairing their strings defenses for less and getting great healers, very efficient for defense overall. 2) Gunpowder + Camels/Scouts. Italians/Hindustani/Malians/Turks. A lot of synergies here, Italians get their cheap techs faster, Malian condorierri, Malian Camels against buildings, faster chemistry for Italians and Hindustani great gunpowder. 3) Wood savings/nomad. Vikings/Slavs/Japanese/Dravidians. Maybe to much overlap on infantry/archers but you still get Slavs for land/Calvary focus. 4) Tech Team. Chinese/Portuguese/Malians/Bulgarians. Super fast already cheaper techs for Chinese.

I feel like this is, in the world of aoe2, a huge subject, with so many tantalizing possibilities. Awesome video!

13:20 I remember that time a 4 player team did a ranked match no farms challenge on amazon tunnel. It was this trade composition relying on Bengali bonus for food.

Vikings Italians is surprisingly good. Both on land and water.

This video makes me think of an idea for a mod: Shared research: every time a player researches a tech, all teammates get it, even if they don't usually have access to it. It would include unit upgrades (if your civ doesn't have champion but an ally researches it you get it), but doesn't give access to unit lines a civ doesn't have (american civs don't get cav), unless this is in the description of the tech (same for buildings). It includes the unique techs. It wouldn't include civ bonuses. Some techs would probably need some adjustments, like in the "build your own civ" site/mods, things like the tech that changes the gold cost of the Magyar Hussar for food. And other techs that affect U.U.

In the old video of top 10 best team game civ combo, I also heard you mentioned Aztecs and Byzantines as a #2 best team combo because their tech tree and play style can cover each other's weaknesses: Aztecs is a strong early game aggressive civilization with Infantry focus, while Byzantines is a strong late game defensive civilization that can provide cavalry support.

Berbers + Turks + Spanish = Barcelona

briton and saracens combo is my favorite. you can bombard enemy base with archer from saracen +2 building damage bonus and saracen can spam their cavalry archer more often thanks to britons fast archery range, not to mention both saracen and briton have the best trebuchet so far

Gotta love the Romans and Khmer scorpion synergy. I'd wish to see more SE Asian civs in the game, such as the Chams, the Mons, and the Siamese, to name a few potential candidates. The Chams could be a naval and archer civ that focuses on raiding, the Mons could be an elephant and monk civ, and the Siamese could be an elephant and gunpowder civ.

The number of teutonic knights on mongol rams is terribly low in this video =(

Magyars, Tatars & Mongols for a trifecta of jacked up Light Cavalry and Cavalry Archers.

Good CA civs paired with Cumans for Cuman mercenaries. Might be interesting also for Incas (cheaper castles and no other fast archer). Burgundians, Lithuanians, Aztecs and Armenians for relics.

One thing I like to think about is what is the most “team focused” of team comps. I like Berbers, Vietnamese, Saracens, and Spanish. Berbers and Vietnamese both have multiple team bonuses, including team units. Spanish have the best team bonus with their trade boost. Saracens have one of the most open tech trees, making them quite flexible. They also utilize the market for an early eco bonus, as well as assist in market manipulation to help their allies. They may not be the fastest civilizations, but if they get going they can gain a lot of momentum with good Calvary and gunpowder.

Aztec Goths Romans was a pretty powerful triple combo when I played them recently hehe

A great video, I have been hoping to find for quite some time. Could you do a video, toughest civ match ups?

There is one amazing that people usually dont think about: chineses and incas. The Lhama below your tc right at the benninging makes chinese start less messy and with almost no idle time

*Sniff.* The once useless Saracen team bonus is all grown up when paired with Persian trashbows. Brings a tear to the eye.

New spirit video, perfect after work 😊

Byzantines and Teutons combined with great Monk civs for a powerful Monk push while having good-value healing for Knights in the Castle Age.

YESSSS I wanted to see this top for years

6:16 I was waiting for this. Best scorpion combo 💜💜

More of a funny combo than anything, but I like that tatars can gift sheep to gurjaras so that they'll get more economy for no extra pop space.

My fav combo for both 2v2 and 4v4 is everyone with a great internet connection on arena.

Huns and Magyars also have a strong synergy where huns have faster training and cheaper CA, and Magyars have faster training and cheaper scouts + and can help with knight production later

Hey Law, Guys of the Spirit here.

Besides picking for meta (knights + archers) and good team bonuses, you can also choose to abuse units that become overpowered in large quantities... My teammates and I really enjoy siege heavy comps on closed maps. Koreans, Celts.. more Koreans, really just 3-4 Koreans. Nothing beats 50 something +1 range siege onegars with a few halbs in front. Or at least, says our data of 2 games around 1400 elo.

One day, I'll get to do the Mongolian taxi with Teutonic Knights. One day.

any civ that is usually weak against archers get MUCH more powerful with a Vietnamese ally.

My personal favourite is playing Veit + Scots on any Map like black Forrest, snake pit. The way it works is that both players create Forrest tunnels across the map to strike and run

Great job Spirit

Best 4 player team is Teutons, Teutons, Teutons, and Teutons.

I like Celts + Koreans for awesome Onagers, offensive celtic infantry and defensive Korean buildings and special units. Another great combo is Chinese + Saracens. That bonus archer dmg vs buildings on Chu-ko-nu is awesome!

my favorites:- 1.Britons+ Italians+ Chinese+ Mayans 2. Magyars+ Vietnamese+ Berbers+ Malay/Persians but Frank Paladins + Longbows is a very difficult to counter. Also the Civs with Trash bonuses together can do anything they want.

Adding the strongest points of various civs together is a pretty well discussed topic by now. Moving a bit to the left of optimal gameplay, an idea for an unexpected crossover is Saracens, Malay for 2v2's adding Bulgarians and Turks for 3v3's and 4v4's, respectively. The basic idea is to avoid the more obviously powerful civs/archtypes and try to build a very strong team that probably isnt the strongest. Saracens: Counter early knight pressure, be ready for flexible counter attack (mams, cav archers, HC, SO, treb, etc), mass up nothing but galleons on water, mass up mams on land, provide aoe healing monks as needed. Malay: Build the teams fish traps and build harbors everywhere possible, provide meat wall of eles/2HS against the few things that can actually counter Saracens (basically just maxed cataphracts and strong camels). Bulgarians: Cover early offence (both scout and/or militia rush), build Kreposts everywhere, mass up konnicks and cavaliers as all purpose heavy hitters, provide budget ETK's as needed. Turks: Cover early offence with scout rush, build bombard towers everywhere, build nothing but cannon galleons on water, build nothing but CA's and bombards on land, provide janissaries as needed. The important counters are covered and there's good death ball potential in a comp of bulgarian/malay 2HS/eles in the front with mams + jans in the backline, with siege support from saracen trebs/onagers and counter siege from turk bombards. Even have some strong rush potential with konnicks/camels/knights, or eles/jans/mans, or whatever. Key thing is that none of these civs are the strongest from of what they might offer; Saracens: SOTL just did the whole vid. No truly big hitter unit to really carry any comp they can come up with and no place where they're the obviously strongest with all the new civs and power creep. Malay: Great eco, eles have heresy, but....karambit warriors. I know they have niche, but its a very narrow niche and veeery unforgiving if you try anything else. Food only 2HS are nice, but in team games where infinite gold can be assumed, they best they got is elephants which take less arrows than generic paladins. Bulgarians: Cavaliers and Konnicks are very strong, but they do acutally fall short of paladins. They are here for defences in the krepost and heavy cavalry. Franks with actually cheaper castles and better paladins are probably a better pick overall. Turks: You have durability boosts on your ranged dps units and a production boost on non replenishable units. +2 range with missing siege engineers doesnt make the bombard the houfnice or the canon galleon like the spanish cannon galleon.

Of course Teutons and Sicilians as ultimate middle finger to enemy monks. Also, I have to say, as Gurjaras main, I have big problem to find many civs I can ally with to their benefit as well. Good thing I do not play MP then (well, this, and that I'm an empire-builder, not meta chaser xd)

Teutons+Vietnamese: insanely high melee armour plus insanely high pierce armour cav/archer pairing.

0:38 - Berbers & Turks (+ Spanish) 1:52 - Italians & infantry civs 2:47 - Vietnamese & archer civs 3:39 - Tryhard: Persians/Franks/Magyars & Ethiopians 3:59 - Burmese & Lithuanians (+ Bohemians) 4:37 - Armenians & American civs 5:09 - Nomad: Georgians & Spanish 5:55 - Georgians & Incas 6:15 - Romans & Khmer 7:07 - Saracens & Persians 7:57 - Spanish, Mongols good on any team 8:23 - Tryhard: Persians & Franks & Ethiopians & Britons 8:58 - Persians & Huns & Saracens & Britons 9:21 - Huns & Franks & Persians & Teutons 10:00 - Huns & Magyars & Persians & Teutons 10:24 - Arena: Turks & Bohemians & Malians & Spanish/Portugese/Byzantines 11:08 - Water: Vikings & Dravidians & Italians & Sicilians/Japanese/Byzantines/Spanish 12:35 - Trade: Spanish & Bohemians & Hindustanis & Bengalis/Italians

A very underappreciated combo is Inca and Chinese. Inca can give Chinese an instant spawning Llama, and the extra food farms helps Incas too.

Great video as always, although you didn't mention one of the most toxic (and effective) team game strategies possible: Goths and Italians, with the Italians player slinging resources to the goth player for an early imperial age and swarming the opponents with unlimited cheap condottiero while the opponents are barely in castle age. And to make it worse, they counter one of the few units that actually counter goths and huskarls: Hand cannoneers.

With my partner, usually in 2v2 games in Arena, we play Cumans + Romans, doing rams and infantry with the blacksmith bonus and attacking in feudal. This strategy has given us 150 points in one week, so it works for us. We call it: The Hectopijada In Arabia or open maps, we play Vietnamese + Berbers, but we haven't thought about equipment bonuses. Sort of a disclaimer: we are noobs :) Our ELO is in the middle group: 1100 in 1v1 // 1200 in TG.

Huns + gurjaras on African clearing or other nomad maps is a sick combo, you can gather all the sheep of the map with your initial horse and send it to your teammate

My 2 balance questions: 1- Why don't the devs just remove the -50 food from the Georigans? If that civ is so bad now, it would be an easy fix that would make them smoother to play, especially for beginners. 2- Bengalis team bonus being +10% food for trade cart makes no sense, compared to spanish +25% gold. Gold is scarcer than food, so why only 10% for an easier-to-get resource? Buff that to at least +25% food.

back in 2022 t90 casted a 4v4 ladder game on amazon tunnel where one team went bohemians, spanish, hindustanis and bengalis and made no farms, and won. the opposing team made the fatal mistake of seeing the absurd food price on the market and selling all their food, giving the farmless team a much-needed discount

In the vein of the 4v4 Arabia combos starting at 8:24, I like Britons/Huns on the flanks and Magyars/Franks (with Persians as an alternative to Franks) in the pockets. The Huns player has acceptable archers in Feudal and will be able to pump out cheap cav archers insanely fast with both the Britons and Magyars team bonuses stacking. Both the pockets get fully upgraded knight-line units and benefit from the Huns bonus for faster working stables. The Britons are the only ones who don't benefit from another civ's bonuses directly, but Britons are Britons, they'll be fine.

Malians, Gujaras, Franks, Saracens = Throwing Knives, Throwing Discs, Throwing Axes, Throwing Cutlasses

Lithuanians + Burmese have them able to make fairly strong skirmishers which are faster & so can get in to do damage better & have that +2 pierce armour... So they don't have arbs, but can tank arbs if done properly. 2 Ideas I've Used Below (Magyars + Persians & then Magyars + Tartars): Mag + Per - Is a nice team comp in that the knight focus of Magyars can stay ahead when they don't have any direct bonuses them-self given the Persian bonus whilst Persians go for archers. When it comes time to swap the Persians can stay on wood costing archers at 7 range whilst switching to Savar (cheaper than Mag Paladin) with the late game Magyar switch to Cav Archers having them at 8 range. These crossbows will technically be tanking for the longer ranged Cav Archers in general fights and can even cause mangonel/onager shots to deal less damage or loose a shot at inopportune times. Mag + Tar - Is a nice team comp where they might do mostly the same thing, but swap between the two well - though they are an open map pairing for sure. Tartars carry the slack that is involved in the Magyar tech tree, whilst Magyars give a solid unit mass with a few bright spots that can excel any combination between them. The worst part is missing Bombard Cannons between them, but the 19 range trebs I argue make up for that somewhat. Both civs support Magyars with Camels, unique units, Hand-Cannoneers or Persians with reasonable halbs & Tartars with Steppe Lancers too.

There is also "Oops, All Scouts" with Poles, Mongols, Huns, and Hindustani.

I would say berber and any civ that want to have uniq units that are needs in mass, cause of the Castle tech of the berbers

Personally my most awaited video 🎉

How can you miss malay on water maps with harbours?

Teutons + Burgundians + Bohemians equal the HRE. You could even argue adding Italians here as well.

It could be too complex to tackle, but I'd love to see some theorycrafting on the 10x shared civ bonus mod. There are some insanely interesting combos in there like Goths Huns instant drush spam, but probably gets countered by Malay Italian Khmer instant imp plus a free castle age unit civ like berbers or huns.

I cant believe Saracens + Chinese didnt make the list. "SIEGE Cho Ku Nu"! 😄

I have a hypothetical question. If team bonuses were allowed to stack with duplicates of civs, IE two Spanish civs on the same team giving +50% extra gold from trade units instead of just +25%, then what would be the best civs to have multiple times? Any team of 4 of the same civ that would absolutely crush things? (Aside from 4 Spanish with their _double_ trade gold, I assume.)

Spirit of the Law!

What about Gurjaras, Britons, Magyars. So Gurjara ele archers can be produced super quickly

Very interesting! You could add great combo on Arena in terms of strategies wise more than pure bonus wise For example, Turks fast imp + Poles or Khmer full knight is deadly The deadliest combo I know, very hard to stop even if prepared is Gurjaras+ Khmer. Gurjaras Siege ele + monks destroy any building and counter other KTS while super fast Khmer KTS kill vills and siege defence It the guy resist with some castle behind walls with mango just go to pocket

All I can think of when I think of synergy is the old Obsidian Arrow UT with a Saracen ally. Don't even need trebs at that point. Probably good it was removed but I do miss it haha

The last one is the ultimate Michi team

Byzantines turtle and trash swarm into Goth spam. Or the infamous Italian sling into Goth condottiero spam.

I would like to see more dominant team bonuses. Especially for weaker TG civs. For example the faster advance bonus for malay or instant chemistry bonus for turks. Making the civs more important and leading to more creative TG play than kts and xbows.

Saracen and hindustani somehow works wierdly well

Press F to pay your respects to Carl Weathers

Persian and Saracen basically the Caliphates

I think that, for the Relic & Monk combo, it would be better to swap out Bohemians for Armenians, as the latter gets a Relic for free when building their first Fortified Church, which they can then give to the Lithuanian player to immediately boost their Cavalry, and they can also collect Relics faster thanks to their Warrior Priest, all the while benefiting from the team bonuses of the Burmese and Lithuanians. In return the Armenians give extra Line of Sight to the teams' Infantry, which is quite good for the Burmese in particular, and can also provide some Archer play in the mid to late game thanks to having a strong economy and Arbalesters only missing Thumb Ring

I always like Chinese paired with Slavs or Teutons. The farm bonus can be insane in the long run. Spanish being the ultimate team civ is always gonna be great, regardless of their ally.

random extra synergies I thought fit your video: koreans are also good with the imperial skirmisher (=50% food). also maybe lithuanians and armenians are good together? the armenian makes a church to get a free relic, then ungarrisons it for the lithuanian to pick up.

I encountered a 2v2 team once on Arena that involved a Turk player going Fast Imp and a Burmese player going double castle Arambai. The Arambai shredded everything non ranged when massed, and the Turk player ONLY made bombard cannons which melted skirms/archers and any sort of fortifcations. Not sure how this work on higher elos, but it was one of the most unstoppable team comps on Arena I've ever seen.

Honestly the celts, byzantine, Armenian, and teutons are great together, just in terms of self sustain and variety in unique units. They could make a hard to destroy base with a couple of castles, or fortified churches on the sides, then steam roll most civilizations.

Armenians and cumans Feudal ram push is one of the sickest combos ive ever played. Worth mentioning🍓

My Tatars have no allies :( Would be a fun video to try and do a best team of 2 and 4 for each civ. Help us low elo's make quicker better decisions. Or an update on each civ and who they work well with? Thanks for the video!

I love culturally/Historically accurate civ parings. Thus when fighting in SEA I love playing as the Malay + Dravidians with Harbours as my main defence along all shorelines that also provide pop space.

new team bonus: Universities, Blacksmithes, Monasteries give +5 pop space

I can't believe you didn't mention teuton monks with a byzantine ally. Monks that have double healing range and double healing speed are hilarious support units.

It would be kinda sick if a tournament was run where players could pick 1 main civ and 1 civ who would instantly be defeated essentially letting them choose a team bonus. I'd love to see what creative strategies players could make up. (Assuming there were picks and bans so the best options wouldn't just dominate.)

Saracens + Hindustanis kinda neat

Britons, Huns, Magyar, and Persians/franks. Magyar and Franks can go paladin whilst Britons go archers and Huns move into Cav archers which are not only cheaper but produce ridiculously fast due to the Magyar training speed bonus and Briton faster working archery range bonus.

Tbh I would love to see a mod with a civ which its only bonuses are all team bonus from all civs.