You forgot about their secret bonus, if you are raiding the enemy with winged hussars, you type in chat "And the Winged Hussars arrived" to assert dominance.
It does amuse me how hussars have had wings since... The Conquerors? Were they in the original Age of the Kings or were they added in the expansion? I can't remember anymore. Anyway, hussars have always had wings but we're only so recently getting Poles as a civ. I find this amusing.
I love the model for the castle, its Bedzin in Poland. My dad was lived across the street from it, and has many childhood memories from having played in its moats and its walls.
Farming = A+ for me. Look at that proper squaring of the Farms. *Look at it!* Hmm, needs more Winged Hussars breakdowns (unless that's already a previous video).
So.... the historical polish Winged Hussars where known as a (a bit late to the party but still) formidable, state of the art, *heavy shock cavalry* . And in AoE II they are not only a light melee cav, but also the poles as such are lacking in the final heavy cav-armour upgrade *and* the competetive lategame heavy cavalry.... WOOOT?? Am i the only one here feeling put off by this?
@@ArthurDraco yes, but this bad? They basically engineered an entirely new civ, while still advertising them for what they aren't in-game anymore... To whom else did they do something on that level?
Early polish hussars were very much light cavalry, gradually becoming kinda "medium" and then heavy shock cavalry towards last third of 16th century, while AoE2 supposedly portraits mostly events from before ~1550. So you can kinda understand why they made that choice, I guess. Their shock aspect is kinda covered by trample, it seems.
@@Sallafar There are a few that i could mention here(not sure if there are as bad as this). Chinese for example, had invented quite a few (most in fact) medieval technologies, yet don't have access to them in game. Also, many Spanish Conquistadors have written about how the Macuahuitl, the weapon used by the Jaguar warriors, could decapitate horses, yet it's an anti-infantry unit. The Saracen unique unit is also a weird one: from what i read, they never threw swords at enemies.
Poles arew my favorite civ in Aoe 2 now. The square farms is the biggest reason but I also have a much better win rate with playing them as an infantry civ than with any other civ.
Id almost count Obuchs as a bonus to the archer score, since with that 2 unit army comp (obuch + either skirm or arb) your ranged unita get more dps than most civs, even if ever so slightly. Its not gamebreaking amount but never detrimental E: Spirit of the Lawn
Yeah especially vs units with insane pierce armor like incan or mayan plumes and eagles, huskarls, or malian Champskarls. Then again just massing more Obuch probably works against those too.
Love your overviews, but you forgot to highlight the Winged Hussar as a unique unit and to show its differences to the regular Hussar. You went straight from the Obuch to the unique techs.
@@tonyschrock627 I know, but that's like saying there's a separate video about the Obuch; you should at least cover the basics in a civ overview, it is on the unique units list after all.
Szlachta tech fits excellent into Polish history - nobility/knight class (in Polish Szlachta) was numerous compared to other countries in late medieval era
In the game, Poles cannot use Paladins, but in real history, there were heavy cavalry like Paladin in Poland, right? In other games, the Poles come out with powerful cavalry that won't be pushed back even if they go head-to-head with the Teutonic Knights.
Yeah infact Lithuanian had more light cavalry and poles had heavy cavalry and in game Lithuanians have strong paladins and poles have stronger light cavalry 😂
@@sahilambawade8636 exactly makes 0 sense. The winged hussars were also the last heavy cavalry in history while everyone else shifted focus towards lightly armored infantry with rocket launchers lol.
Still baffled (and honestly annoyed) at how Winged Hussars are replacement to hussars instead of paladins and considered light cav given that their renown comes from them being an elite, very heavily armed and armored cavalry of early modern era.
Poles are great on forest nothing because you can micro your farms to get a respectable food income in the early game. You should be able to get a lead off of that compared to other civs. How about a remake of the Slavs?
Nah. I play forest nothing at a very high level. The poles needing a 3by3 space for the mill hurts alot. They do catch up but they don't have anything that stands out in imp that make them a good civ. Not saying they are bad but they aren't even a top 10 civ on forest nothing
Also you need wood for gold early on so deleting farms and remaking them hurts your early gold income. If you want an imp time less then an hour in you need to sell All the wood you collect. To get to imp you need at least 1600 gold to also get onager upgrade and an onager to use to cut. That's roughly 10k wood sold at 14 per 100 wood
I wonder how they would fend with Mongols as allies. I feel like both civs complement each other perfectly - both in their strengths and their versatility - and can make up for unpredictable plays. The only problem is the late game when both lack Ring Archer Armor and Plate Barding Armor, but both are strong in the late game anyways. Also, factor in the fast Mongol siege if you pair it with Obuch.
Historically, we actually get well with Tatars most of the time. Prince Vitold, brother of King Vladislaus Jagiello, gave them land on Polish and Lithuanian borders in exchange for a title of Khan. Those warriors were perfect allies and fearsome foes for next centuries. Mongols wasn't a monolite. Much of the horde swore loyalty to Ottoman Turks, some got under Russian Tzars. But those raised near Baltic Sea are still brothers to us, who helped us survive russian regime. Even religion wasn't an issue to them. They taught us horse riding, archery and their tactics. It would be nice if AoE would make some synnergy
I wonder if with the mechanics of the Folwark, the original Korean bonus could make a comeback... "Fortifications within 20 tiles of the starting TC are built 50% faster and cost 15% less." "War wagons are now classified as siege, no longer classified as cavalry archers, and no longer benefit from archer armor."
Not sure about this, but the way I see this, Szlachta Priveleges is supposed to be used as soon as one hits Castle Age while continuing producing Light Cavalry. This strategy is supported by the Folwark bonus. Of course this means that people using this strategy would have to take a chunk of their villagers to build a Castle, and upon its completion immediately research the unique tech all the while continuing producing Light Cavalry for offence/defence. Once the research is completed, Knights can be produced. This would free up lot of gold, and can be a potential source for the Imperial upgrade.
You pronounce "Obuch" correctly. It's not the hardest Polish word (actually quite easy), but it's nice to hear a non-slav pronouncing Polish word correctly. It's not too often to hear that. Sincerely, Krzysztof ;)
You never really got into the idea of Obuch as a support unit for other things, which is where I believe (and the numbers seem to agree given their winrate on closed maps) their real strength lies. The Obuch may not win a fight against a Boyar or a Teutonic Knight one-on-one, but as a front line with something like ranged behind to capitalise on that armour stripping ability may well do much better. I'd like to see how well they do vs high armour unique units when they are used in tandem with something else, either in a 1v1 where that'd require a more closed map or much more intense micro; or in a team game where the Poles player just churns out their Obuch and a teammate covers the other half of the comp.
B- for trash units? Have you played Poles in late? Once you have 100 farms using folwark, you spam Winged Husar with TRAMPLE damage that can beat other Husars and halberdiers. If you have some relics, you can add Cavalliers up to 30 gold. It is one of the best trash units civilization in AoE2.
Good point. Setting aside the super cheap gold units (Obuch, Champ, and Cavalier), Poles winged hussars wreck all hussars and have the best result among all hussars against halberdiers, followed by Bulgarian hussars. They also kill skirmisher in only 3-4 hits.
Great vid as always! But small pronunciation issue - It's not 'obuK' or 'obutsh'. 'Ch' is a grammar variation of 'h' and pronounced as such. Normal, short, dry 'h' like in 'hell' or 'home'. Obuh.
The winged hussar has always won against helebardiers, when I played them. even in terms of cost-effectiveness. They also perform extremely well against ranged units. And they win against all cavalry, except the cataphracts and elephants, but that's not a problem if you can outproduce your enemy with trash units.
You can think of the stone/gold bonus like this: For every two villagers you send to either gold or stone, you are choosing between two gold miners, or two stone miners and a bonus gold miner.
Poles has been my favorite, replacing Spanish in team games with friends. Prioritizing mining stone into castle usually gets me a good amount of gold and the stone I need to put up castles. Plus a mill that actually fits around the farms is nice AND the instant food from 10% of 8 farms is really nice in a pinch. I wish more civs were well rounded like this.
Love the content you make! Would you ever consider doing a video on conquistadors? I know Im not alone in wondering a lot of things about them, such as bonus damage/class type damage, how they stack up against other units, etc. An overview of the spanish civ would also be pretty neat, I think theyre a really well rounded overall civ
@@konradpyszniak976 As they are also houses, you are likely to need to build many of them, possibly before even starting up your farm eco. Can position two near TC to cover future farms. The first of which would likely be best placed either to the top or the left of the TC if I'm remembering the farming video well enough.
I wish Poles got either Paladins or Plate Barding Armor so their cavalry wouldn't be so frail, even if at a worse discount from Szlachta Privileges. They really struggle vs massed Archers as their Hussars die fastest to them too and they lack Siege Onagers as well as Ring Archer Armor.
Nah they just need to make the UU tech make their knights only cost food. As is, even the significant gold discount isn't enough to make up for all of the missing upgrades and the fact that they have better options elsewhere.
The meta these days for 4v4 is two archer civs and two cavalry civs. But I wonder if maybe including an infantry civ or a siege civ might be able to counter the meta.
Im not an expert player, and I’d like to get some opinion from other players. I recently used poles in a standard mid-open map (scandinavia). I stood struggling in defence for 1:30 hour against mongols, byzantines and mayas (moderate level CD), using arbalester behind the walls +castles and winged hussars to crush siege weapons, and finally attacked with cavalry, obuch, w hussars end trebuchet. What could I improve in tactics, in ur opinions? Thanks SotL for doing this video
A huge advantage, especially on maps, where you know, or you can assume or find out quickly where your opponent's town is (like on Arena), is that you just need to collect stone to get enough gold to get to castle age. Then you can immediatelly drop a castle at your opponent's town and even keep collecting only stone to get enough gold for the most of time while castle age. Meanwhile you can drop a lot of castles there.
This can be good at lower or medium elos my linksgrünversiffter friend but it is definitely not optimal, so there are counters that work too well which higher level players will utilise.
@@fs23 yeah, but by that logic, almost no strategies are good because the really pro players can counterplay them. Not to belabor the point, but an all in castle age knight rush is a strat that can easily lose you a game at high elo due to their better ability to micro and adapt to stressful circumstances -- but I wouldn't say that means that knight rush is a "bad strategy" -- even if it's not that great at the highest level.
@@josephdavis3472 I think when talking about things it's best to avoid the trap of "but in high elo" because in that territory every single move can be countered so its like... why bother hahaha
Normally I always skip the ad, or switch videos...but for truly exceptional RU-vidrs I will, as a professional courtesy and sign of respect, always watch their sponsorship sections. Spirit of the Law is one such RU-vidr, so marketing people looking for effective partners take note!
I used to play aoe back when I was a little child during the 2000s and I always get a feeling of nostalgia thinking about this game, at the moment I have the game on my steam but never play it, even though I love watching your videos about it, they're so well edited and curious to watch and they make me feel relaxed and happy :0(!)
What do you mean "allowing you to finish the ram off with an arbalest"? No matter how much (pierce) armor any unit has, any attack will always do at least 1 damage.
that or you can also ask the opponent to repair the ram just enough to survive but not hit 100% and reset the armor again you know, in the name of science. Actually, can you still repair your opponent's thing? I remembered that being a thing in pre-HD
my absolute most favourite civ! :) I play them on all maps, of course arena and BF are more favourable, but if you can get to a point you research Szlachta privileges and spam super cheap knights on open map, it's gg :)I would like to see the folwark garrisonable for 8 vills, similar to khmer houses
About winged hussars. It actually makes sense. Historically Winged Hussars were seen as one use unit to deal decisive blow. But other cavalry units like armored companions were actually doing most of the job to make this one decisive charge possible
3:00 Interesting point that Poles are incentivised to do mill upgrades early, because of the 10% value dropped off immediately after farm construction. However, not sure if it's a good reason to do farm upgrades early. Because while a farm upgrade means you get more food up front, it also means you need to wait longer until the farm next renews.
These DLC are actually not that bad, might consider buying them although it is weird that other ones like The Forgotten, Conquerors and the likes the were included into the base game are not considered DLC anymore. Also the fact that these DLC are paid makes this unbalanced since not everyone will have access to the same civs/bonuses/units. Imagine if in chess you would have to buy your towers or bishops
I do find it interesting that Spirit tries really hard at 6:17 to pronounce the "Obuch" and NAILS it, but from then on continues to call it the "Obu" instead for some reason
Wait, what if you build the Forkfarm three tiles away from Town Center? That would mix the protection of your town center with your special bonus. I usually build the mill three tiles away
Italians probably are the Poles' worst match-up. Genoese Crossbows just pick apart Polish cavalry and Hand Cannoneers can deal with Obuchs. Poles also don't have good siege or skirms. And if it's a water map, Poles just lose to the Italian navy. I could be wrong, though, as Italians have a pretty lousy early-game too.
If they made winged hussars stronger it would not fit to the middle ages. Winged hussars were famous in XVI and XVII century. In 1410 Polish Army was composed of knights and cavarly archers.
So Poles perform below-average on open maps... I'm not sure whether that's ironic (like Saracens performing below-average on Arabia) or fitting (seeing how often Poland was invaded by its neighbors).
hey Spirit Of The Law .Now that you are (done with all Civilizations) I wonder if you have come up with one / more Civilizations yet? I have come up with 12 Civilizations
Its kinda sad from historical point of view, that someone should play Poles as archer civ... When they are renown for having best cavalry unit in that period (who stopped turks and beat mongols). It wasnt a light cavalry the Hussars but closer to a heavy cavalry with best trained horses and very high offence capability. But overall great guide. When west was considering going heavy infantry, Poles showed that you can effectively win vs fortified castles armed with cannons with a cavalry unit and proper strategy. And that other nations have "hussars" like Spain etc is just absurd from historical point of view.
