How good are Mamelukes? (AoE2) 

Mamelukes not getting bonus dmg from skirms is their biggest buff by far. Imagine if the paladin took bonus dmg from skirms

Remember that at one point or another Mamelukes were considered Infantry, Cavalry, Ships, and Archers, before finally settling on the armour classes of Camel, Mameluke, and UU I think only the Mangudai has probably had more changes as a UU!

Always loved the memelukes as a kid, my favourite units along with Mangudai since The Conquerors :D

I feel Saracens and Mamelukes are one of the most balanced sets in the entire game. You get a little in a lot of areas, but each area requires more input from the player to overstep inherent weaknesses, and if you're good enough YOU CAN overcome your inherent weaknesses. One of the most fun civs/units in the game.

I always saw the "mameluk" as a camel with a ranged attack forever, so it made me angry that they are easily countered with skirmishers or another bonus against archers, when that's really not the case.

Imagine you're a knight and you see the guy in front of you get hit by thrown scimitars from 8 different guys all sticking into him from different directions and with a few more in his horse. He topples over. Then it happens to another 5 one by one, with unerring accuracy. Medieval warfare.

anyone else remember the good old days when ZeroEmpires' profile picture was once a poorly cropped screenshot of a mameluke?

Why don't you do a UU elite upgrade tier list? Seems that for the Mameluke the elite upgrade is fundamental, but for other UUs maybe is not so much. Thank you, love your content!

really underated unit, the saracens probably much better with cavalries archer for their unique unit because arab people are well known for their horsemanship. people often jokingly said the high cost is for buying new sword because the mameluke keep throwing them

"I will not play AoE this week it is taking up too much of my time" > SOTL upload "you're right it is time to learn a new civ and drop 100 elo"

Mamelukes have always been and will always be my favorite UU. Nothing like slaughtering an army of knights with my throwy-bois 11

The one critical thing I think you missed is that numbers have a MASSIVE affect on how good they are. Yes, that is similar to other ranged units, but it's actually far more impactful than even archer units because they deal melee instead of pierce armor. I would say that all of the tests you ran would be a lot different if you used bigger armies. In fact, with a big enough mass of mamelukes you can even take on Cataphracts and Camels without micro (albeit the size is probably unrealistic for a 1v1 game), because you have so many mamelukes firing from the back rows while cataphracts and camels can only attack with the frontline units.

Could you maybe make a video about how many land units you have to hit with the demo ship line ships to be cost-effective? I think there are some interesting results there. The petards couldn't make a good case for themselves due to low damage and small splash radius, but demo ships have higher damage and a larger blast area. It's pretty easy to get your money back when hitting a formation of arbalesters or trebuchets in the shallows, but I'm also interested in the more tricky cases such as mamelukes, which have a large hit box so they don't stack as densely, and they can take a point-blank non-heavy demo ship hit. On the other hand, mamelukes are very expensive, and despite the ranged melee damage are unlikely to be able to snipe incoming demo ships due to the demo ships' speed and their own low range, so I think a reasonably skilled player could pull off such an explosion, ending cost-effectively. I'm not at all certain, but maybe a heavy demo ship could even hit enough elite skirmishers at bottomed out market prices in a trash war to be cost-effective despite the demo ship's gold cost.

i've learned to expect a saracens overview from you after this video :)

I have been using the Saracens since the inception of AOE2 in 1999. They have most def improved over the years. Not only are they great against MOST cavalry, they also pair well with EVERYTHING! A meat shield is crucial in some fights including skirms if it is Genoese crossbows. If you are fighting other camels, your camels and general camel counters will pair well with them.

Love your videos SOTL! I recently got Aoe2 and its my first rts and your videos have been a blessing so far!!!!

Really underrated unit. Not my favorite UU, but one I use plenty of them whenever I play Saracens.

Raiding potential of mamelukes is also huge, they can bust into walls easily and decimate a woodline. They're a severely underrated unit, even just mixing a few into a regular knight/camel army is a big force multiplier.

I love that Lanchester Laws left a permanent mark on the channel

Mameluke video! You know what that means: updated Saracen Civ Overview coming soon! 🥳

So on the whole, they're a solid step up from saracen heavy camels in most cases. Vs infantry they have better dps and can kite to offset their lower hp. VS archers they outperform H camels with the dps and range offsetting the pathing disadvantage. Cav archer hit and run can be counter microed (barring cumans) since they have the same speed as mams, so I'd use them over camels even here. Vs buildings, the heavy camels have more hp for arrow fire but that doesn't amount to too much for the lack of armor and the dps + focus fire of mams shines again. Bonus; mams can snipe vills better. Though mams are, in the end, units with middling hp and no armor - certain civs and unique units are pretty hard on them. Any civ with good camels is trouble for mams. Fortunately, saracen camels beat most other camels head to head so its usually fine to pick camels yourself and support them with skirms if the civ has particularly strong archers. Notable exceptions are Imperial camels and gurjaras camels, which can match and beat saracen camels respectively. Saracen camels at least tie with imperial camels and counterweight siege can break that tie, but vs gurjaras its best to opt away from cav altogether - between shrivamshas, the civ perks + unique techs for their own camels neither saracen camels, mams, nor cav archers will see anything done. Well barring that, mams should out perform camels in all fields given the right support.

Just before watching this video I played a 2vs2 on Arena as Saracens vs Koreans on my side and my enemy tried to counter them with skirmishers. I knew that was not a solid counter but he apparently did not.

I think that they're an amazing unit against any civ which doesn't specialize in camels. Also, I find it (at least in theory) that Skirimishers + Mameluks are very solid. Add to that a bit of siege and you've got yourself a death ball.

R.I.P. Spirit of the Law Squarespace joke. You held up longer than I expected and you will be missed.

Crusaders coming home with scimitars sticking out of bodies after fighting mameluks.

Zealotry originally costed 750f 800g. They decreased the gold cost to 700 with the release of DE. Then obviously it got reduced even further when it was switched to the castle age tech and then it was just removed in favor of the camel HP civ bonus

Great video. Felt a little sad there was no "spirit of the lock, lord, long or lot" website joke.

Favourite UU alongside the Woad Raider and Cataphract!

Hindustani team bonus of Camels doing +2 damage against buildings affects Mamelukes and Camel Archers, by the way.

Unless there’s a hard counter present Mamelukes have always been great as a „strike team“. Spam lots of Hussars and use one moderately large group of Mamelukes more actively to overwhelm positions or clean up holes in my defense. In my experience their range along with melee damage and speed makes them a more versatile CA in these late game situations. With a meatshield they can deal with almost anything so in my high skill matches against the AI they‘ve done amazingly even before the buffs. Even if they’re too expensive for most 1v1 matches I have seen them used in the way I describe in team games which is where they probably shine the most for better players.

I have an idea for future video. Please read and if you like give thumb up for SotL to consider doing it. Thank you Spirit. You finally did a awesome micro consideration. In the cavalry archer part in special. You even talked about critical mass effect in the micro wars. Maybe you could make a video analysis on critical mass in ranged armies' fights. Would be very cool. Talk about the concept, apliccation in general and the diference of onager critical mass, scorpion critical mass, high range critical mass (where many units can shot from afar) and low range critical mass (like mamelukes and others). Some critical masses mean you 3 shot, or 2 shot, or 1 shot a unit. Each number of these can turn a fight completly. And the knowledge of this also mean you can take care with over kill.

Expensive units like those are best when the game is reaching population capacity for both sides as the Mamelukes are very pop-cap efficient. In late team games when resources are not much of a worry they become extremely useful and powerful. But that applies to practically all expensive units in general.

Great video as always

Do you know the best way to ensure the accuracy of the trebuchet? It's annoying that it misses so much especially when it hits from the side.

But what about the best Halb in the game ? Teutons extra armor ? Viking pikeman? Celts extra speed? People want to know

Mameluke vs. Teutonic Knight just might be my favourite interaction in the game

Yeah! Sarracens update video coming soon! 🤩

Mameluke: "Oh? You're approaching me?" Teutonic Knight: "I can't kick your ass without getting closer."

May I request a video about the “best” handcannoneers?

If your voice wasn't so tantalizing I would skip the ad in the end. JK - great work once again SOTL!

Have you done a recent overview of the italians or genoese crossbowman? Searching shows a video on italians from 7 years ago, and nothing comes up for the later.

The Mamluks were among the very few enemies to defeat the Mongols in combat, and they were never conquered. The Mamluk institution had appeared in Islamic civilization in the eighth century as the Caliphs sought to create a military force that was loyal only to the Caliph and not to regional, tribal, or another personal ties. Most Mamluks were of Turkic origin, primarily because the Turks were viewed as better, or at least more natural, warriors than Persians and Arabs. Turks of nomadic origins possessed riding and archery skills from an early age, so that after purchasing them as slaves one only had to refine those skills. The Mamluks therefore became perhaps the most highly trained warriors in the medieval world. They seized power in Egypt in 1250 during the ill-fated Crusade of Louis IX (Saint Louis) and created a Sultanate that dominated Egypt and then Syria until the sixteenth century. The Mongol Art War, p.109

My favorite unit ever yeaaaaaaah

Speed and HP that I think the early devs put on so much different armor and even ship on Mameluke because they can runaway from their counter pretty easily, even when they got hit thanks to high HP they can still survive one or two attack before reaching safety.

one day we will get a melee unit that does ranged damage

Last time I was this early Mameluke was still archers

As a former franks picker nothing strikes greater fear into my heart than seeing these chucky boys

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="228">3:48</a> actually "mamelukes" did NOT historically come from arabia, they were actually mostly Circassian (next to Georgia/Armenia) They were a caste of professional troops who were bought generally from slavery, until when there was enough of them at one point they took over when the empire (Mameluke sultanate) and it lasted for centuries. They famously defeated the mongols under Qutuz, which singlehandedly prevented mongols from overrunning north africa and potentially have 2 points of entry into Europe

Mamelukes and Teutonic Knights will always have a special place in your heart - they are like the girl you had a crush on back in primary school.

I think the memelukes have two issues: The gold cost and the low producing speed (same as camels but built castles). That means that it takes a lot of economy and time (or castles) to build a critical mass of them. The trade-off against the arbalests is a great example: in a situation where gold is not a limiting factor for either player, the archer player almost always want to trade, as they will be able to build up the numbers again in few seconds

They could be made less fragile to archers by adding +1 pierce armor when receiving the elite upgrade and bring the 1 melee armor to the standard mamaulke that way they can have a better time navigating archer fights

one thing I would have liked to see against cavalry was what if you change some mamelukes into heavy camels? does it bring better or worse results or just the same? also while obvious to most, newer people would have benefitted seeing how cataphract changes the cavalry encounter

I will add one very awkward thing about their attacks: a bit similar to other melee units that attack from range (Gbeto and Axe Thrower), they do A LOT of overkill damage. Usually melee units get the distribute their attack mroe evenly, but on the flip side they get body blocked. Units with 1 range like the Kamayak or the Steppe Lancer bipass that and get to ditch out more damage. But I guess the range around 3 to 4 hits that awkward zone in which they dont have enough distance between their target to dps from safety all he time like archers, to the point were it pays off even if there is overkill. Also since their attack packs a huge punch you can really feel that extra damage go to waste. So they can be very counter intuitive, since you want to mass them like cav archers, but to me they make more sense in groups of 7-10, or whatever the perfect math is to 2-shot a knight with some wiggle room.

Is "spirit of the lamp" (e.g. for a genie) a missed opportunity at the end of the video? Or was that used already?

Ahhh yes. My favorite ship. The Mameluk!

This video tells me that mameluks should be used like the conquistador.

How do you move your units like that? When I try to micro my units always go back a bit before moving forward when I tell them to move. This always results in extra hits that they could have been avoided.

As they are not affected by ballistics, can you "easily" dodge their shots, or do they have built in ballistics or better yet homing projectiles?

Spirit of the Mamelaw

Could you make a video listing all the AOE II units ? Cheers.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="507">8:27</a> Chakram Throwers: I'm I a joke to you?!

Fun fact, that ending monk was generating something like 4500 gold per minute!

I am disappointed you didn't make a Spirit of the Law pun website name for your Squarespace ad read.

updated Saracens overview coming up!

good video, some of the saracen losses in the current NAC5 is literally because the pro players are not very aware of how good of a combo is skirmishers + mamelukes and they never do it. so cheers for the good highlight there.

I would have loved a test against cataphracts and boyars.

you missed Cataphracts. they are like soft counter, last i played mameluke deathball vs cataphracts they did not take same damage as other cav, less than regular cav.

My favorite unit

a good idea for a video is if the suicidal units (Petard, Demolish ship, fire camel) worth.

Sad we didn't get to see the stand-and-fight against the Teutonic Knights :(

I like such units that sit in between and don't follow traditional laws of countering. And these even have range. They can attack through walls and deal melee damage, paired with high HP and good mobility.

I smells Saracens overview incoming.

I will have to watch this later. Too hungover for numbers right now

My fave civ and unique unit. 🎉

I smell an updated civ overview incoming.. 👀

"How good are Mamelukes?" ask the Mongols at Ain Jalut

I would be interested how well a combination of Mameluks and Heavy Camels does against the various foes.

Thoughts on archer - mameluk comp? Other than being gold intensive

LET'S GOOOO

I just played through Saladin for the first time. Memelukes are OP

The Mamelukes are goated

In my experience playing Sara, Mameluke single handedly destroy Civ that wants to play Knight+Pike or Pala+Halbs combo like Teutons or Franks (which is fitting to be honest). For most civ, when facing Mameluke they need to either make camel or range unit like halbs but Sara can make Pikes for camel and Skirms and onager for arbs.

It would be a good expansion idea to break up Saracens into a few different civs like Fatimid and Abbasid

Me trying to picture a castle full of Mamelukes throwing hundreds of swords at the enemy.

My favs

I see Saracen review on the horizon

Guessing Saracen revisit is next?

Mamelukes prove their sigma chad energy by throwing scimitars instead of using them in melee like common scrubs, making them automatically top tier.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="226">3:46</a> Historically Mameluks (Mamluks) were Turkic slaves who rode horses and used lances. They were employed by some powers who were ethnically (or liguitically) Arabic, but probably didn't see as much action actually in Arabia.

I was able to get the achievement in Saladin 6 by being carried by these units.

Something to note is that 1. Only the drabidian archer elephant are somewhat cost effective, other elephant archers are not 2. Camels don't do that well when the mamelukes are being micro'd

I remember first time seeing them in a lan party around 2000 with friends. Gameplan was simple, the most paladins won. And then they came by one player and no one knew what to do with them. Still a bit scared

I was today years old when I learned that camel archers don't deal bonus damage to regular cavalry.

Ah, Memelukes, such a great unit. Hits Pikes before they reach melee, demolishes cavalry as well as camels, and speedy enough to run down archers. A great one-unit composition... as long as you're not fighting enemy camels, because for some reason anti-Mameluke damage is a thing.

Is there a website where you can see which upgrade affects each unit? :)

mamelukes great at hit and run. if your micro is decent or your opponent isn't watching, you can bumrush seige and throw your swords right past those pikes picking off the trebuchets. If you have a group of about 25 they can even counter cataphracts using hit and run, but they can't stand their ground. Maybe pick off the trebs first. You could use hussars to soak up some arrows then try and get in and out quickly with your mamelukes to kill those trebs as long as there aren't too many archers.

What about Cataphracts? How do they perform against mameluks?

Since mamelukes are also camels, halberdiers get a whopping 37 bonus damage in total against them.

I always liked the unit. There's just something about a dude on a camel chucking sabers at people.

Your background music sounds like Spyro