Edit: Based on the many questions posed in the comments section below, I've decided to further expand on the Unique Upgrades of the HRE for its infantry to answer your questions. Check it out! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VT8MbxyB0Lc.html How many times did Age of Noob say Landsknecht in this video? My German friends, I hope I've pronounced it correctly all those times! Thanks for the continued support as always, and more Age of Empires content on the horizon - stay tuned!
you pronounced "Landsknecht" pretty well, just the "ch" is not performed in the back of throat. It is more similiar to the "ch" like in "french" but we could argue it is a kind of dialect :D
@@Raydramon I've heard from a few Germans to not pronounce the "cht" at the end as "ch" or "sh" sounds in English, but I know zero German or any of its dialects so I wouldn't know myself.. :D I suppose there're a few correct pronunciations then based on what you said :)
I find it hilarious that you put so much time and effort into making a high quality Video but can't be bothered to use google translate to check the pronounciation :D
@@artemislogic5252 No he doesn't mate. It's impossible. There are 60+ military units in the game. There are also a plethora of upgrades (unique and generic) that affect outcomes as well. Then there is equality of resources and numbers. Then there is the difference of value of resources in different times of the game. Then there are different scenarios for each engagement. And so on and so on. Combine all of those and we're talking tens of thousands of different scenarios here. Nobody wants to watch every scenario play out for tens of hours. I'm a long-time viewer of SOTL from the very beginning. He rightfully skips unimportant details and makes some assumptions to simplify concepts in most of this type of videos - as he should, because his videos would be 10 hours long as well otherwise. The viewer just needs to know the fundamental engagements and can ballpark the rest in the game. :)
The best value I've gotten out of Landsknechts is definitely in protecting siege weapons against torch rushes. Especially glorious if you load a few inside a ram and bait a villager pull, as they can slaughter dozens of villagers in a matter of seconds.
Funfact: Landsknecht is only the designation for foot soldiers, the Landsknecht used Pikes, Crossbows, Zweihander, Muskets, Arquebus and many more weapons. 😉
Yes you are right. But they got famous for using the heavy long swords. With that they were capable of detroying the horses legs when enemy knights or riders attacked. They stand at the front line, ca. four meters from each other in a row. Their swords were nearly two meters long. When the enemy riders arrived to trample them down, they stepped byside and slashes their swords in the legs of the attacking horses. The horses break down and the riders or knights felt to the ground. Since they were unable to stand up alone (the knights) the very heavy swords could penetrate the armor of a knight (because of the weapon's weight) or were used as a sledgehammer to kill them. Light riders became seriously injured by the fall and most of them weren't able to fight again. I come from the south of Germany and just at this time there are many festivals - so called Sommerfeste or Volksfeste. Pupils dressed like Landsknechte (the plural is not called Landsknechts :). When I was in school one of our german and history teacher told us this. So i think the makers of age of empires 4 made a very good job. They drew them for what they were famous for:)
@@simonnagel5135 I do not know where your teacher got his information but what he said is suicide. The Pike or Landsknechtspieß was the weapon against the kights. Edit: And with this and the Longbow the time of the knigths were over.
@@captainobvious8530 doppelsoldner are a type of Landsknecht that just fought in the front and received double the pay for it. It's just that usually in the front, you want to use certain weapons.
amazing quality content right here. one thing that i like to add is that both units work really well togheter, a mass of mixed Landsknechts and MAA work better in any situation than a mass of only MAA or Landsknechts, the MAA tank the damage for the Landsknechts allowing them to deal even more damage that they can in their own, is a truly melee deathball
@@AgeofNoob When there's prize money involved, they'll make an excel spreadsheet and find the optimal mixture! Off the cuff, if you've got pro-level APM, I'd say charge with Landsknechts in front, pull them back for just a second to let the MAAs in front and agro the opponent, then attack move the whole group to let the fight play out.
I really like that the first attack animation is different 1:07 The landsknecht enjoys himself but next time he should be working at attacking his enemies rathee than the air in front of them
The first attack animation is specifically that far apart - it helps a group of Landsknechts deal a massive blow in the first hit after a charge, while other melee units scramble to get into position to begin hitting. :)
I feel like you've actually missed out on testing the ideal use case for landsnecht: mixed in with men at arms or other more durable for the cost units to tank ranged fire. A few of them mixed in with your spears or MAA can help you win cost effective engagements vs a lot of non area of effect things
I don't know if it would be a good idea but I'd throw a few of them in a unit formation you get a bit more cleave damage here and there whilst the MAA hold the line for longer. Your also more likely to get a single unit attacking a LSN then a group. You'd have to test it though to see if its worthwhile.
It would 100% help with the initial engagement, but the MAA would still lose in numbers. But yes, microing your melee army to space out for the first hit will definitely have a positive effect on the outcome for you, so if you have ranged help, you can nuke down the Landsknechts quickly!
Nice video! However I think it would have been a great addition if you did add the mace and two handed upgrades. This is the part what makes M@A of HRE so good, as it boosts their damage. I think that would bring the conclusion closer to using them mainly instead of the landsknechts. Also, siege is a real thing in most games. Almost everyone will be building siege and perhaps that will also be a main case where you don't want to build landsknechts as most of them will die by for example a few mangonel shots.
The AoE analyst community is sooo freaking good. You're doing such an amazing job, there's SOTL for age2, really great work. I don't even play any age game now(don't get time, sad corporate noise), but I really enjoy these videos. Keep up the amazing work. 🖤🖤🖤🖤
The Landsknechte got famous for using the heavy long swords. With that they were capable of detroying the horses legs when enemy knights or riders attacked. They stand at the front line, ca. four meters from each other in a row. Their swords were nearly two meters long. When the enemy riders arrived to trample them down, they stepped byside and slashes their swords in the legs of the attacking horses. The horses break down and the riders or knights felt to the ground. Since they were unable to stand up alone (the knights) the very heavy swords could penetrate the armor of a knight (because of the weapon's weight) or were used as a sledgehammer to kill them. Light riders became seriously injured by the fall and most of them weren't able to fight again. I come from the south of Germany and just at this time there are many festivals - so called Sommerfeste or Volksfeste. Pupils dressed like Landsknechte (the plural is not called Landsknechts :). When I was in school one of our german and history teacher told us this. So i think the makers of age of empires 4 made a very good job. They drew them for what they were famous for. Wish you strategy fans the best :)
probably the best use for the Landsknechts is to mix just a few of them in a MAA spam like 30 MAA and 10 Landsknechts and call it a day (they should lower the gold cost to 60)
i always get 6 barracks and make 5 mma and 1 landsknecht. 2h mace is even better than the landsknecht in most scenarios. But the aoe and speed can wreck crossbows and blobs.
Quality content as usual. An idea for youtube series would be some mathification of units, like, how many arrows/hits a unit can take before it falls. For example, how many spearmen hits a horseman can take and if it's worth to get the blacksmith +1 armor or +1 defense on each age, or how many archers I'll need to 1shot a spearman, or how many crossbows against m@a, stuff like these are always nice
Good video. Really no way to test mixed armies of LKs and MAA, one important match up is vs spearmen though. HRE likes to get to castle first and get relics, Knights don't need upgrades (as in from hardened to veteran) unlike MAA, are fast and the prelates can heal them, so they're ideal for getting relics, also you can bait your opponent into making spears/xbows and then mow them with landsknecht
A nice combo ive found with landsknecht was horsemen. They hold down whatever ranged units are trying to kite the landsknecht, providing you with an effective meatshield letting the landsknecht flank and focus down the main body of the enemy army. They absolute tear through pikemen so the horsemen are safe vs their worst counter. Horsemen kill off crossbows and archers and landsknecht deal heavy damage to cavalry and heavy infantry..
Hey AoN. Good topic there! I have couple of questions: How much better do maa do with drills and unique techs (2h maces) as dmg dealers and when chasing down archers? I think context is king in this situation. Maa normally are the tanky frontline against archers and spears are the tanky frontline against cavalry. So yes, maa are a defensive unit, but HRE has faster, stronger maa that can trade equally against knights. With this in mind the question is whether there are scenarios when you should make just maa, just Landsknechts, or both.
I think Drills would have a higher impact on Landsknechts than the MAA when chasing down units, as the Landsknechts get one-shot by critical mass archers before they can reach them. With full unique techs, the line between the Landsknechts and the MAA really does blur though, so you're right. A mix of both can make sense in many scenarios - but as I mentioned in the video, the Landsknechts are ready to go in the Castle age without having to wait or spend on any resources :)
nice video. i will try mixing them in again. but i would really like to see what the fully upgraded test would be since i feel like fully upgraded MAA are even very good vs knights and other Infantery as well.
Great video! It would be interesting to see which attacking formation is better to use with a Landsknecht army in comparisson with a mixed MaA and Landsknecht army.
The great Ottoman emperor Age of Noob is stepping on the grounds of the old Japanese monarch Spirit of the Law. Who will win in this battle of the giants! To arms, my fellow agers!
what I'm wondering is: what if you have ranged units as your main troup, like maybe 1:1 with your melee ones, if the Man at arms better are, as your ranged unit will survive longer and do so more dmg
Personally, I think they could reduce the gold cost, increase the health, and reduce the aoe to a single row rather than two rows for the Landsknecht. I have no idea if that would garner the results im thinking of, but after 150+ hrs in this game with plenty of HRE opponents, I hardly ever see Landsknechts. Even when they're on the field i can still body block them in many situations and stop them from getting their bonuses. Idk if making them tankier and cheaper with less DPS would change anything, but its been on my mind a lot when I play against or as them.
Landsknechts seem to fair a lot better than I thought, but I think comparing them to MAA without their two upgrades is a faulty comparison. What sort of HRE doesn't get Maces and 2-handed weapons?
Amazing! I've been maining HRE for about 30 hours now and I keep getting my ass handed to me. This was presumably tested without the speed upgrade yes? I'd think LK would mow down archers due to speed even quicker if they had the upgrade.
HRE main here: LK get shredded by archers since arrows counter light armor. Despite this video saying otherwise the Landsknechts got no place in the current meta. They are way to expensive and volunerable to almost all units. Long story short they are a waste of ressources. Always go for M@A over LK.
@@Nairam10 This. So much this. This video promotes such an untrue narrative I could scream. And I say this as a guy who WISHES that the Lansdknecht was even the least bit feasible, because I love the historical significance and their aesthetic. But unfortunately they're trash. For one thing, the disclaimer "This video shows both units without upgrades." Okay, the Man at Arm's unique upgrades are incredible and are kind of the reason you'd want to play HRE in the first place. Why would Man at Arms not have the civilization's iconic, defining upgrades? Mace-at-Arms are the most iconic part of HRE, next to the unusable Landsknecht. Then the "tests" show the Landsknecht clobbering (un-upgraded) melee units. Besides the previously-mentioned fallacy of them not having their upgrades, this scenario presupposes that the Landsknecht will EVER be able to engage in massed melee line combat with the enemy at any point in a game of AoE4, and that's just not true. It literally never happens unless you are playing LAN with a friend and say "Hey let's just run melee units at each other." This is the heaviest range-oriented AoE since AoE3, where 9/10ths of the units had guns. Everyone has ranged units, and ranged units kill Landsknecht faster than literally any other infantry unit. Also, by the time you're at the point where you can make any amount of Landsknecht, you're talking well into HRE castle age. (And keep in mind that some other race's castle ages *will* come faster!) The Landsknecht aren't just going to be facing archers (which already shred them), they're going to be getting 1-shotted by good range + siege. This unit just has no place in a game where you're making units for effectiveness, ala a strategy game.
@@LightningGentleman - in imperial age they got no use at all. - in castle age they are usable when your enemy has no ranged units nor mangonels and you fight on open field(which never happens) - Outposts, towers, towncenters and castles just whipe your LK's - so even producing LK's for the purpose of killing villagers is a waste of ressources - any form of ranged units shredd LK's - even crossbowmen The only way to make use of them is for defensive purposes. So in case you want to protect your villagers from raiding units. Sometimes you can place them in forests to prepare an ambush, but that is very very sitational.
@@Nairam10 Right, and seldom in a back-and-forth strategy game are you going to make an infantry unit with such situational applications. They're generally just supposed to be there to take a hit or two and soak. This one and its "they're okay in a ram sometimes," just isn't worth it.
So bait your opponent with some MAAs to switch into crossbows, then pump out Landsknechte, got it. Just need enough anti-siege out. Good thing springalds will still perform great against mangonels after the upcoming patch.
I tend to favor MaA with maces late game since they can tank a lot of damage while bringing down structures, a decent sized blob can even bring a castle down without too many of them dying. Combine them with bombards and mangoes to back them up, and they are pretty resilient for raiding a base
@@PolarMuttaqin its not better vs crossbows. Yes, they dont take bonus dmg from then, but man at arms have a lot more hp and even with bonus dmg can tank almost the same amount of shots
I think testing them with men at arms having maces and two handed weapons upgraded would be better, as HRE does have those upgrades. It's more of a choice for HRE to whether they'd make which cause the other civs don't have them.
Love this type of video. Often times playing as Chinese I have a bit better eco but can't easily translate that into successes quickly during engagement. Often times games were won by slowly dragging down the opponent, which I think shouldn't really be the case when I have a 20vil lead and map control.
Oh the pronunciation! I hear you say: /Landsg - k - negts/ similar to "Lands Connects" It should be something like: /Land - SHHH - nekts / similar to "Land 🤫 Necks" Great video BTW!! I'm subscribed now
I run a 5-2-1 combo with M@A - Spears - Landesknect... it is a death ball that is only vulnerable to mass range and mango spam... So counter with some mangos and springalds of your own!
You should test them against villagers. How many can they take down before they get inside the towncenter or tower. I feel we may be surprised in this test.
Great question - would definitely help with the initial engagement for sure - but then they'd have to get close anyway. But this is for melee units; archers have to be close to one another to kite away, otherwise you'd lose your critical mass immediately.
What if the Landsknecht was more like his expensive real-life counterpart? He would have a saber in case he lost his main sword for faster attack speed and parries, maybe a musket or pistol to penetrate the knight's armor as well. Also a pike or polarm for anti-calvary. At least he have this insane variety of arms?
Could you compare the landsknecht to the hre men at arms with both their upgrades? (2handed and maces) it’s hard to know which unit to build if your actually playing the HRE. I feel like it’s always the man at arms they are power houses after those upgrades
@@AgeofNoob 2 handed weapon is extra damage for all targets, and maces would improve the fights, especially on the mixed fight that knights ran them over at 7 minutes
yes the maa with 2 mace wreck everything, blobs and single targets. Landsknecht is good against xbows because the mma are slow.. MMa should still win against xbow but they will kite you so much it gets boring.
Countering them is hard. Landsknecth with spears and archers will take down any cities they were attacking unless the defenders has tons of towers, keeps plus siege weapons to slay them. Mangonels, nest of bees and anri personel siege units is their best counter or archers on top of the walls with siege units as their back up and melee units as the meatshield. Preferably spearsmen and men at arms or palace guard.. harrasing them with cavalry archers especially camels archers and mangundai and horse archers is one way. Others needs to harrasing them with cavalries lure them to attack and ambush them with ranfe units or many watch towers.
HRE maa are insane already and the value is way better with the cost you also don’t have to mass horses which will cancel out any enemy spears especially cause your speed buffed and constantly healed anyway
OMFG first Aoe4 caster who did not BUTCHER the shit out of the german word "Landsknecht" I have heard so many LÄÄÄNDSCHKNÄÄÄSCHT - to the point of physical sickening No idea if ur vid is good or not (only 10 sec in), yet take my like good sir!
1:25 what if you put him a little closer, here he is hitting at max range as soon as possible but one could move him closer, would he hit 3 rows? On a side note the Landsknecht seem to be able to hit many more targets when say it is villagers gathering berries maybe because they would stand super close to one another.
Great Video the amount of tests you made is impressive! Subbed just because of that. The only thing I would have loved to see as well is how Landsknecht fair in mixed battles as the game suggests you should just mix a few into your normal army. Looking at your video it seems that Landsknecht are actually stronger if blobbed than mixed in!? Would be interesting to know if it makes sense to mix a few into your MAA army or just go full-out landsknecht. Thanks for showing us with alot of tests that Landsknecht might not be as bad as people think they are. (even a bit better now since x-bows got buffed vs MAA?)
in my experience it's best if you go for 60/40 MAA/LK with upgrades only on MAA since even without upgrade LK support amazing with AOE dmg vs melee important here to say is MAA needs to charge first despite lower speed while LK fill gaps and deal heavy blows then retreat if you lose to much MAA due to higher speed while letting MAA stall the opponent but that only work vs ranged since in melee they just destroy enemies in this combo
you should do a comparison of HOLY ROMAN man at arms with the heavy mace buff to do more damage to heavy units including horses i would like to see HRE man at arms compared to knights with the heavy mace upgrade. ALSO you can say that the landsknechts cost more gold BUT if you doing HRE normally right they get more gold than anyone with cathredral and the resource buff from church with relics.
I'd be curious to see if there is any splash damage while firebombing buildings/siege, i.e. if I am torching a building while getting attacked, do those enemy units also take damage?
Hey age i am a HUGE fan of your videos :D I want you to ask if you could consider something: You regularly upload videos about exploits in the game. Most of them are already declared as "known issues". Would you consider to upload videos explaining this bugs only when they are already fixed? I really like this format, but you are a huge voice in the age 4 community and one of the number one sources if a new exploit is in the game. But the moment u upload an exploit video the amount of Users exploiting it increases very fast.... greetings
Hi @Age of Noob, ty for the content, can you pls answer me to a question, do Chinese FireLancers' charge have a cooldwon? i just faced someone who was abusing that and his firelancers somehow didnt have a cooldown, it was like 1 second, i just wonder is it a bug or just it has to be like that?
i really do think that man at arms fall off at age 3 due to the crossbow and mangonel because armor becomes less relevant when there are much higher damage units and aoe units that completely decimate infantry. at this point i think it's just more valuable to have just a couple of spearmen and landsknecht to protect artillery and really the main bulk of your army should more or less consist of crossbows/handcannoneers and siege units past age 2. and cav being optional as they are really best suited for harrasment and flanking and usually just better in smaller fights all around the map. but then again it depends if you are even trying to play using artillery or if you are trying to use cavalry to out maneuver the opponent, there are playstyle options, but in general there's not a whole lot that beats a blob of handcannoneers losely protected by some spearmen except maybe a mangonel, but if you've lost to a mangonel that's on you. but what does landsknecht have to do with spearmen and handcannoneers? well they just add some omphf to an allready powerful infantry core.
Just see what happened in real world - mass ranged(any type) with support of spears ended up ending reign of armor. Even more so here - all of ranged can attack at every time, while melee only has small percentage actually fighting and big part of them running to find a target(because they are being blocked by their own units). Thats why ranged units shred everybody else, even if they do only little damage against armor - they still have more overall DPS because they actually attack like 99% of time instead of 30% in case of melee.
@@alexejvornoskov6580 yes, exactly, and this is why the landsknecht isn't as bad as people make them out to be, because all melée infantry will still be only useful in a handful of situations later on because ranged infantry will just be better. really the only rare occasion in age 3 and 4 would be to suicide a couple into their eco or to protect artillery pieces from cavalry rushes, that's about it. everything else is just ranged infantry and artillery and maybe some cav to cut off reinforcements or some other sneaky maneuver.
@@bobxbaker I don’t get where you see a possibility to suicide anybody into eco by age 3 - on most maps their eco is long protected by walls from all sides by that time.
@@alexejvornoskov6580 walls is not allways a thing by age 3, people rather make artillery or keeps that requires stones, and in age 2 people rather have rams and outposts and army than wooden walls, and against HRE walls is usually not what people are gonna make because most people make walls against cavalry or archers, not against men at arms. and in any case by age 3 you would probably be able to make rams with landsknecht on the other side of the map anyways to break walls even if it's just a diversion to split the attention of the opponent. the funny thing about the landsknecht and rams too is that they are extremely deadly too so you can't just send a couple of units and not look at the fight and assume you'll win, because landsknecht do beat a lot of things head on without micro, and if they lose that fight they'll have landsknecht hauling ass in your economy. 4 landsknecht jumping on a line of villagers mining gold? they disappear real quick compared to other options you could send to kill villagers. i'm just saying, sure melée infantry isn't that great by age 3 and 4, but landsknecht can surprise a lot of people.
@@bobxbaker keeps are freezing waste in that game without support of walls bottlenecking enemy into them… you can run amok behind them, because most maps are way too open.
