How "Battle for Greece" overhauls its naval combat (AoE2) 

With this DLC we're halfway to your threatened "mangonelephant"

The demo ship as a Fireship counter was like trying to make the petard are knight counter. While in a Archer meta.

Been playing AOE since 99, and listening to Spirit since 2015

Note that 4 more differences NOT mentioned here is that Fishing Ships can mine (450 per deposit) gold from oyster deposits, Incendiary Ships have 20, 30 and 40 less blast damage than their respective Age AoE 2 equivalent (the demo ship), Transport Ships get additional carry capacity automatically from aging up rather than that requiring the relevant ship upgrades for it, and Trade Cogs can now be set to trade for one of a few different ratios of wood and gold rather than just for gold.

i like the 2 seperate docks. The military one beeing only available in feudal age adds an extra investment that can be scouted, so the decision making is really important with this system. I hope it gets good feedback and will be introduced in the standard game for some new cool civ bonuses applied to them

Am i the only person that is upset that they never added the animation of the sails billowing when ships move in DE, like was in the original game?

My issue with water is that ships simply don't feel right. They are huge graphically, but don't behave like it. They still spin around on the spot, accelerate instantly, overlap each other like crazy and in most cases don't deal real damage to ground units. The water domain is in every purpose just the ground domain except worse in every way. For ships done right look towards Supreme Commander. There from mid tier onwards, each ship is a lumbering floating base, bristling with weapons, but paying for it with maneuverability. And each high end ship costs as much as a small army, and also behaves like it. Parking a fleet off-shore and shelling a base just feels badass, and naval battles are just sublime. Each engagement is much slower than a ground battle, but requires much more forethought. Medieval naval warfare is obviously different to the WW2 model SupCom is broadly emulating, but ships still should feel more like ships than archers with oversized sprites.

The DLC absolutely adores auras, jesus christ im pretty sure every unit has an aura at this point

compromise for the generic Dromon thing: all civs are given Catapult ships in Castle age, but the ones without cannon galleon get to upgrade them into Dromon, with their anti-building properties and range. some stats and costs would have to be adjusted of course.

5:30 Can’t believe you made the demo ship sit in the corner and watch. SpiritOfTheFreak

There have been mutliple water reworks before this. But this is the first time I think they actually achieved their goal, this sounds great.

It's just a simple improvement: an one-time-use demoship is just not appealing to get into any countering system. You need an actual unit, like ram ship, to be a "unit", not just a bomb. With that been fixed, you can now nerf the gally, that they can't out mass fire ship and counter everything.

I know its now a bit taboo to preorder games/DLC nowadays, but the moment I saw the grand campaign option I was sold

I've always been surprised that AoE2 never had a Trash Ship. Especially because Canoe existed in scenarios for more than a decade,

Ramming was no longer practised in the medieval period, but you could just rename them "Boarding Ships" and have them fulfil the exact same role (balancing the DPS to remove the charge attack if you want, since it makes less aesthetically for boarding compared to ramming). Boarding enemy ships was usually the only method available for decisive naval combat in the period before heavy ship cannon (with incendiary warfare being so unreliable in practise) that it was always very strange to see it left out of AoE2.

This should absolutely be adapted for the main game. It's just better

I like that some civs get Dromons and some get CGs. I like the generic catapult ship idea, too. And the idea of the Leviathan: essentially a kind of flagship. What if Turtle Ships and other unique ship units (particularly large costly ones) also had aura effects?

The Lembos unit sure sounds like that Middle-earth superfood of the elves.

SOLT pumping out videos real quick. Love to see it

I always found AoE2's water battles unenjoyable, unlike AoE3.

Damn this sounds like so much fun, the water needed to be spiced up. Can't wait to play

9:00 - I asked this ever since Dromon's introduction. Make it a water mangonel and give it to everyone in Castle Age. While Cannon Galleon stays as it is.

Biggest issue with water maps for me, maybe this doesn't work on better players, but at 650 ELO or against the AI I always win by just never making a single land unit, going for absolute water control with Galleons, then bombarding the shoreline and never attacking until the enemy resigns from boredom

Whale whale whale, water we have here?

I like the look of the incendiary raft. Looks more like it was quickly gobbled together as an explosion delivery system. Also love the the inclusion of more units with aura to act as sort of officers or generals.

Going into some ‘depth’ hey. Think that pun went over our head lol

Fantastic work from the people behind this! I hope to this changes water units and mechanics for all other AoE2 civs. And I hope the 3 new civs end up on ranked after balance.

As always, a great quality video!

You Spirit, are the guy who made the 14 year old me look at the game as more than just campaigns and massing war elephants, but for the math and small text i used to overlook. Ur content is always well made and interesting.

A roman ramming ship that acts like a monk on water, just with very short range. "Prepare for boarders!"

The fun part about this interaction is that for a lot of nations it would be a lore accurate addition to add a ramming style ship. I'm pretty sure Japan and Korea have something like it in their respective histories.

True innovation here is moving oars animation.

Feels like a twist on Age of Mythology's system combined with parts of AoE2's

The idea of an expensive, aura buffing flagship you want to micro to focus or defend intrigues me

i would actually love to have sth like that in regular aoe2

Love this. Hope the ramming ship gets added to main AoE: II

AFAIK ancient naval battles were mostly decided by boarding enemy ships and kill their crew by melee combat. If they really want to make a different naval battle more realistic, they should make transport ship able to melee attack, the more soldiers it contains the more powerful the ship is.

I still don't even play Age of Empires 2, except Spirit of the Law is such a good content creator for the game.

Thanks for another update video!

Loving the Ramming ship, I wish it was implemented in AoM retold

Pumped to play this

i wonder if theyr doing this to test out an aoe2 DE water overhaul. that would be so epic.

Seems they took a few ideas from Age of Mythology. Their, ships are balanced exclusvily through their armor and attack type. Especially the meele ship is part of the AoM water triangle.

Love the changes to water!

Really the demo ship should be in the port. Demo ships historically where just civilian ships loaded with fuel or explosives.

I like this a lot more, Before your choices for an army was, Mass fire ships, or mass galley's... Or Yolo Suicide bote. This way we still get yolo bote, but now we actually have some dynamics going on here. You have more comp choices, or more counter play. Before water was just, Clicking the same unit button a hundred times, and hope your snowball beat the other snowball. This looks better.

Now I want to see expert water map tournament with this DLC.

I like the cute little onager babies that ride on the catapult ships

i cant wait to look at all the new unit skins up close

Really happy they are putting more focus into naval bottles. I hope we can get a Pacific Islander civilization one day.

Getting Cossacks-vibes from these ships. Curious how this plays out, but I'm willing to give it a go

Even having a second water building helps with the very messy dock UI that exist in AoE2. I feel like sorting the dock UI would itself help things a lot.

I’m assuming Monoreme ships eventually get upgraded to Triremes?

I like “melee ships” replacing the Demo’s role in the combat triangle. There was plenty of ramming in the Middle Ages, too, so it could be brought to the base game. At the end of the day, though, the best ship is the Flying Dutchman. 👀

I like the AOM Water Triangle.

Personally I want more regional unique ships too, as well as civ specific. China was known for their fresh water “tower ships” which were essentially floating castle fortifications, so having something like a mobile defensive unit could spice things up there. I’d also like to see true galleons with gunpowder projectiles like organ guns have, or more representation of south and south East Asian ships like the thirisidai is supposed to be, just better researched. Water civs should really feel like they’re bringing something beefy to the table.

The DLC looks greek for me!

Video 1 of asking Spirit of the Law to do a video on why certain maps are so popular for Competitive AOE2(in paticular Arabia)

I too am interested in what the general playerbase's and the pro's feelings on the general idea of this system (I was going to say balance, but that can always be adjusted as needed)

It'd be interesting to see, if they could be placed in a scenario editor game for example, which civ bonuses affect any of these ships, even if they're not civs that would get access to them

When talking about changes to water, one should always use a _flow_ chart.

We've been overhauling water for 10 years and counting

I'd be totally up for this kind of water overhaul in regular play, even if it forces players to totally relearn how to play water maps.

When I was a kid, I had a dream once about absolutely huge ships in aoe2. Turns out, Im a prophet.

Water lacks a lot of variety as well. There are unique water units of course, but they are locked to their civs. Be nice to say split the galley line into a lighter faster ship and a heavier ship, maybe. Longboats should carry units and fire more arrows the more they have inside.

Not sure if they could implement the raming ship on normal AOE2 on imperal age with ironclad ships, since they began like on 1850 not sure if still is like imperial age from AOE2.

Yeah the problem with demos as an explicit counter is that demos don't swing a naval war so much as reset it to a null or near null state where no one has ships.

They should add boarding ships, that can convert enemy ships like monks, but need to get into meele range.

I think just adding a boarding ship to act like the monoreme would be more than enough to help standard AOE2 water maps.

I'm looking forward to the new naval gameplay. Will the AI be able to use the new shipyard and ships effectively?

I honestly the think AoE 4 has an awesome naval unit line and mechanic, which some slight adjustment and adaptations can be easily copied for AoE2.

There is still one problem with ships, even with this new DLC: it's hard to tell at a glace what they are and what they are good at. Take a look at the last scene in the video: it's pure chaos. With land units, it's easier to tell at a glace what they are good at: if he sits on a horse, then he is fast. If he has a big shield, then he is likely good against archers. Etc. With ships it's difficult to even tell whether they are ranged or melee.

"they do have friendly fire" cool, never building them.

Hypozomata is like Gambesons, but water

I am reminded of how clunky naval combat was in punic times, and how rafts were still common. So that begs the question in my mind, what about transport ships since armies were still more important?

How I think they should overhaul Aoe2 water: • Fire-galley line gain trample damage like Siege Elephants 🐘 and Siege Rams so they remain relevant against mass galleys; I would try Fire Ships and Fast Fire Ships have 1.5 tile blast radius with 50% effect. • Galley-line and (Elite) Longboats being nerfed and reworked; I would try: •Longboats/Elite Longboats have the same balance changes as War Galley/Galleon • Removing attack bonus versus ships. This is actually pretty big as it reduces damage versus Fast Fire Ships for Galleons by -40% with full upgrades for both and reduces damage versus Heavy Demolition Ships by -46.15, due to armour considerations • +6/+7/+8 attack bonus versus buildings replaced with +12/+14/+16 attack bonus versus economic buildings for Galley/War Galley/Galleon, Docks ⚓ and Town Centers gain +10 economic building armor, Fish 🐟 Traps gain the same amount of hit points as farms and lose their 10 building armor, houses gain -2 economic building armor, farms get -20 economic building armor, (nerfs the ability of Galleys/Longboats to win water, while making their utility for specialist roles better) • -1 range 🎯 for War Galley specifically • Gain 0.35/1.2/1.2 attack delay for Galleys/War Galleys/Galleons (putting Galleys the same as archers 🏹 and War Galley/Galleons equal with pre-buff Gbeto) • -2 projectile speed (makes it easier to micro against them and to run away from them); additional -1 projectile speed for War Galley and Galleons (putting them equal with Fire Ships and makes sense with the animations) • -0.11 speed (putting Galleys only 0.02 ahead of Fire Galleys); additional -0.02 speed for War Galley/Galleon (makes sense with their appearance) • reduce accuracy to 70%/85%/100% for Galleys/War Galleys/Galleons • massively increased collision radius (so the ships forming extremely dense balls is not abusable) • 50🥩 food Dark Age upgrade from dock ⚓ Piracy 🏴‍☠: Ships get 20 gold and +10 hit points per non-water unit or building killed.” (like the old Perisian bonus of “Mounted units get 5 gold for each military unit killed”; technically benefits all ships, but the Galley-line benefits the most from it due to their range, helping them in their specialist role); Berbers get it for free • Imperial Age upgrade for all civs Privateering, which requires Piracy 🏴‍☠, is 1000 food 🥩, 500 gold, takes 120 seconds, and gives “Ships get 20 food, 20 wood, 20 stone, and +20 hit points per non-water unit or building killed. Ships gain 2 range and +20% blast radius.” • for flavour reasons, while trying to keep it balanced, Britons can get Privateering in the Castle Age, Franks get it for free, and Spanish have no gold cost for it like their Blacksmith upgrades (Privateering was there in the time frame of the game, so it is flavourful) • remove the attack bonus of against rams and do the same for other unique unit replacements for galleys against rams (so the ram/armored-elephant-line tanking strategy hard counters them) • +2/+7/+11 attack bonus versus Villagers for Galley/War Galley/Galleon, Fishing Ships 🎣⛵ have their 0 Fishing Ship armor replaced with 2 Villager armor, Trade Cogs have their ship armor replaced with Villager armor, Fishing Ships and Trade Cogs gain +15 hit points, Trade Carts gain Villager armor (so Galleys are better for their specialist uses and Fishing Ships and Trade Cogs are less fragile to make the water less snowball-y) • +3 line of sight • -15 wood 🪵 cost • Galley description changes to “Warship with range to attack the enemy on land.” • All siege units have a higher bonus attack versus ships; Trebuchets gain 100% accuracy versus ships like they have versus buildings instead because they one shot most of them anyway. • Transport ships need a buff, especially as they are virtually never used on hybrid maps like Cup and Bay; I would say: • Have Transport Rafts which are 40 food 🍒, 20 wood (makes sense as supplies are stored for passengers) • Transport Rafts have 60 hit points, no ship armour (so transports scale better and more intuitively into the late game), and 2/4 melee/pierce armour (stats which would make them moderately tankier in the early game than current Transport Ships versus current Galleys and makes scaling much more intuitive and less convoluted upon upgrades) • Transport Rafts upgrades to Transport Ship with the War Galley upgrade and has a special upgrade like the other military ships; I would call it Serene Transport Ship to make it sound cool • Transport ships attempt to ungarrison units when destroyed like buildings and siege, but will have them die like before if not close to shore. A change mostly for hybrid maps. • Water maps have players start with a Transport Raft, so they can scout and have landings. It makes it easier to do a landing, but also a lot easier to scout an opponent’s landing. The Scout Cavalry is also there. The original Transport Raft has the Auto Scout ability like the other starting scouts. • Transport Raft’s line’s line of sight increases like the Scout Cavalry line, so is +2/+4/+6 in the Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age • Base line of sight is 5/10/18 for Transport Raft/Transport Ship/Serene Transport Ship, so they can see where to land and scout easier (results in 24 line of sight fully upgraded the end, which is 5 higher than a Trebuchet’s) • War Galley upgrade gives +2 garrison space, +20 hit points, +1/+1 armor, and +0.05 speed • Serene Transport Ship gives +5 garrison space, +50 hit points, +1/+2 armour, +0.15 speed, and is only initially available to civs which are not played on full water maps like like Jungle Islands 🌲🌲🏝🌲🌲 to help balance them out (makes it strong, while keeping Heavy Demolition Ships a threat) • Do future balancing of the Transport Raft line so that landings are meta, however they cannot win the game by themselves against an opponent with the same skill level, so the water is still important. Also, make sure they at least rarely see play on hybrid maps for shenanigans. • Remove the resistance of ships to conversion, to punish too aggressive ships • Habors being a universal upgrade from the Dock; change Thalassocracy to be: Docks ⚓ and Habors have 2x hit points, Habors have +1 attack versus ships and +1 range. • Heavy Demolition Ship upgrades changed to only cost food, like the Battering Ram line unit upgrades, to make them an easy switch in the late game. • Add more tree lines on hybrid and full water maps close to the shore in future map updates, so winning the water is important into the late game • A new ship, the Boarding Ship to represent naval boarding, with: • available in the Dark Age • costs food 🥩 and wood 🪵(flavourful as the supplies for the crew) • moderate melee attack and high health and armour • loses health over time when not garrisoned (like irl ship decay) • it cannot attack buildings • upgraded by the War Galley upgrade and has its own unique upgrade like the other military ships; I would call it Conquering Boarding Ship to make it sound cool • as an optional extra gimmicky ability, have it convert enemy units if they have a low enough health after being attacked • The Boarding Ship would serve a defensive 🛡 role, as it would be great in defence, but poor in offence. The ships will just decay to death if there is no enemy units to fight • Vikings bonus of “Warships cost -15%/-15%/-20% in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.” replaced with “War Galley, Shipwright, and Conquering Boarding Ship upgrades are free.” Flavourful and avoids bland one unit composition navies. • Roman bonuses for Galleys moved to the Boarding Ship line units for flavour reasons • All civs gain access to Fire Ships, Demolition Ships, and Boarding Ships to avoid them lacking core tools on water for nuanced, dynamic gameplay. Though the specific upgrades in Imperial are still given on a civ by civ basis. • Byzantines lose the Galleon upgrade, so while they can win the water easier with the changes, they cannot use it to push land very easily. • Berber unique tech Maghrebi Camels renamed Barbary Pirates and now is “Camel and Galley units regenerate 0.25 HP/s, Ships generate 4x as much gold from kills” (the camel 🐪 thing makes sense as Barbary Pirates 🏴‍☠ often attacked on land after dismounting from ships and it calls back to the camels being ships thing in Aoe2; balanced by Berbers not being that strong on full water maps, and Maghrebi Camels/Barbary Pirates being fairly expensive) for flavour reasons. • Add in Uninhabited Islands, which Fishing Ships 🎣⛵ can gather wood 🪵 from. An infinite source with a high carry capacity, so that the maps have less of a potential to stalemate and sneaky eco gathering is a thing. Plus, it is flavourful, as ships commonly gathered supplies from islands in the past and real life trees are extremely renewable, due to reproducing and often being able to regrow from their stumps (humans used this to produce tons of wood with Coppicing and Daisugi). They are only non-renewable in-game for gameplay/game engine limitation reasons. • Other resources on the water would also be fun additions. • All ships other than Transport Ships gain the ability to garrison 1 unit. This makes landings easier, without making them win the game by themselves, and allows fishing ships to have more utility for shenanigans on hybrid maps once the fish 🐟 runs out.

The really lopsided unit triangle balancing approach has been done more successfully in other strategy games. Advance Wars has one with tanks, battle copters and anti-air guns, where copters beat tanks but are steamrolled by anti-air. In practice this means tank deathballing is the dominant strategy, since copters don't trade cost effectively enough against tanks to justify throwing them away when an anti-air starts covering the tanks.

If they port over the catapult ship maybe the dromon civs could get an upgrade to them in imperial to turn them into modern dromons while everyone else just keeps the weaker one but gets cannon galleons

Sometime high detail 2d graphic is better than fake ass looking 3d models

So they just brought the AoM naval combat into the AoE2 Ancient Greece DLC. That should work well.

I didn't know "reme" meant row of oars. I'm learning!

that ram ship could get some use

I'm just saying: Water Maps would be more popular if they made Bog Islands the default one instead of Islands. It's because on Islands, winning the water doesn't win the game while on Bog Islands it does.

It's very weird that all ships fire from the prow instead of the broad side. Naval combat is the most unrealistic part of AOE2 apart from monks.

0:07 nice

Just call ot the "boarding ship" instead of the ramming ship, and explain it as soldiers/sailors boarding another ship. Charge mechanic can be explained by the boarding waves. Finally, add that boarding-bonus/charge-mechanich to the viking longboat, and make Turtleships imune to it. And voila. Perfected aoe2 water triangle.

I would like to see trireme and bireme too

Ancient conquest reference

Most importantly, did they nerve the bell sounds?

Ramming speed!!

If base AoE2 sees a dip in water maps while Battle for Greece's ranked is absolutely dominated by them, we know why.

I think the overhaul makes sense for Greece but trireme ramming as the core principle of naval warfare was long gone by the middle ages so it would be very jarring. Siege engines on ships makes sense though, but that's already a thing.

Technically, there are 21 unique interactions, not counting mixed navy comps, because of the same v same interaction.

I know its impossible but I want to have more cannons on the ships in Age2. The galleons should fire broadsides and the cannon galleon could be renamed "siege" galleon. I know pipe dream

cool. ill still never touch water unless its in the campaign tho!

Cool

So no sea towers and walls still cant build

2:25 lol the rowing. Looks so insectoid somehow

Do the port and dock buildings still have more than one page?

I like what they are trying but I don't really feel like re-adding it back into the base game is necessary.