When Two Arrows are Better Than Five 

AOE2: "It is a surprise mechanic!"

I never really thought of it as a hidden mechanic. I mean, if you upgrade the tower, it’s gonna have more defense and attack. Common sense. I didn’t really need the manual to tell me that.

@@MoistTowelette125 I think, the weird part is when you consider the same total number of arrows doing different amounts of damage depending on how many are shot by a certain number of towers. Honestly, it would make zero sense in real life because you are not really upgrading the tower but just garrisoning more people inside :D

the difference is, this behaviour has to be coded extra. it can't result as an error from normal code. it would have been simpler to make each arrow do the same damage...

@@RKBock you really don't know that. Weird mistakes can happen for a variety of reasons.

To paraphrase Barney Stinson: "Why? Why? Why do we let you be a game?" Ding-ding, somebody joined your lobby... Yay! Side note, however, I feel this was done specifically keeping trush in mind... Can you imagine how the game would be if Tower wars went on and on forever since they only do utmost 5 damage to each other... The defending player is crippled horribly...

Well, I don't particularly like but can understand the idea of not revealing all mechanics to avoid exploit/confusion/additional work.

Maybe it wasn't in the original and they added it later in HD because of those tower battles in multiplayer as a mean of self defense.

Well I kinda actually like the fact that there are these hidden bonuses not mentioned anywhere and for players to figure it out themselves. Even after 20 years, people keep exploring these hidden secrets that were built into the game which kind of makes it more fun.

That's because of the projectile duplication mechanic. When the game duplicates extra arrows, those arrows use their /own/ stats, presumably because their “origin” is the projectile and not the unit/building. The problem with this is that if you edit the tower's stats, it doesn't affect the arrows' stats unless you also remember to edit them too, and the es dev team was not nearly as careful with data editing as they could be. The bonus damage is probably a remnant from alpha/beta when towers did extra damage to each other, and remained because they forgot to edit the arrow itself.

What? No! Being able to land a handful of villagers and Tower rush a malayan port in a galley war is the most useful thing in the game :D

Makes the koreans so much better against them on water levels.

What about Celtic trebuchets preventing sheep conversion?

@Jan Sitkowski I value the range more my friend. The Malians docks cant make elite cannon gallons. Much easier to destroy.

@@toahero5925 what, that's a thing?

Donjon also gain hp while aging up similar to giving them free guard tower and keep upgrade.

@@hbarudi Watch towers gain 320 hp upon hitting castle age. Just pointing it out...

*arrow breaks through and hits a candle, sending it up in flames*

AOE logic: if i shoot enough arrows or stab that stone wall enough times it will burst into perpetual flames and eventually explode. also AOE logic: a burning wooden structure will remain on fire indefinitely, or at least until someone crouch down next to it and hit the ground with a hammer for a while.

@@abitofsupport601 Candle ignites the table! Table ignites the curtains!! Then the enemies leave and the situation stabilizes for the rest of the game -_-

Arthur J The wood in the building regenerates at the same rate that it burns, so it only gets worse if someone is actively adding more flames before the wood can react.

Look it makes total sense though. You can only fit so many arrows inside a building, so eventually it'll burst. The occupants will frantically try reducing the amount of arrows by setting them on fire, but it's never enough.

I mean, that's technically true I suppose, or at least more potential firepower

@@capablemachine I mean, if you loaded up a castle with people, it would have a lot more firepower than one without!

@@Yawyna124 yeah, but they would starve earlier in a siege

sure, but more firepower specifically against other towers?? hahahahaha

What about bombard towers?

Would be interesting to know for doing the persian rush

Without actually checking the stats I'd say yes. TCs are really quick at taking down towers

I mean tc vs tc. When i play persians i tend to delete my tc and put it in front of the enemy's tc and destroy it with my own, but it might take ages to do so. Anyways, its fun.

@@felipemonasterio6397 TCs are not classed as stone defences afaik, so it wouldn't help vs them. But checking the Age wiki it seems that TCs don't get the tower arrow bonus vs stone defenses. Their aroows don't act like towers do but they get a general bonus of +5 vs all buildings, not just stone defenses

Haven't tested it by any means but the effect should be much less noticeable than the high amounts of damage each extra cannonball deals to begin with, considering BBTs have 120 pierce damage + upgrades Still though, I can see them becoming quite useful in lategame tower battles if they ever become a thing during a match

I actually think it doesn't matter cuz 120 or 120+5 damage is no big difference. Eventhough this would be the exact kind of thing he would make a video about

Sooo maanyy questions that follow from this video!

see now hwat hes done is made himself more content

Extra cannonballs don't have this bonus damage (not that it would matter much as others pointed out)

Hellooooo

So... you gonna pick the baby up and change the dipers now? or what?

@@Slimesmilie when this Video came out i was doing stuff

Him not running out of content is a testament to the greatness of this game.

I know man. Same here

@@chungus816

*shredded wheat

IKEA battering rams at that, since you can flat pack them to fit between 10-20 in a transport ;)

Benjamin Maughan ik one important tip he’s mentioned is using the attack move command to manually target where units are going instead of letting it automatically target and attack.

@@mthaygood3334 Also if you only play against bots then mangonels are extra difficult to use as the AI are masters at splitting their units, Mangonels are good vs players and not AI

Also, if you can pull off the perfect timing / micromanagement, stagger their attacks if you have multiple mangonels, makes it considerably harder to dodge all shots than when they shoot all at once.

You could always just put five vils in the tower (instead of four) and get 4 extra arrows if you have fletching, so it doesn't matter that much.

I immediately said "Nice..."

Maybe you never found yourself in a position where your towers fired at enemy towers and walls, understandable if you don't use them offensively

TheNewMaxico they both have similar speed and do melee damage. You’re welcome

@@shnoogums1 they also have good defense and are good against and with siege units

What about balista teutonic knights? 😁

@@JNCressey well uh, those not so much

Well, they're both hideously slow, very tanky, very high damage units. They both, in general, have a disdain for buildings, with war elephants getting a boatload of bonus damage against them on top of their already high base damage, and Teutonic Knights get a pikeman's worth of bonus damage against buildings on top of their already high base damage. That, combined with up to around 6 or so pierce damage makes them very hard to kill with arrows, but doable because they are, in fact, hideously slow. In addition to being anti-building, in general, their primary role is going to be absolutely messing up enemy units that are melee based. War elephants are one of the few units in the games capable of doing trample damage-- area of effect melee damage. This, with their insane damage numbers, makes facing them up close really dangerous, even for spearman-line units which will do absurd damage right back at them. Teutonic knights, on the other hand, while they have way less health, though still admittedly high, they are the melee equivalent to the Goth's Huskarl in that they have dopey amounts of armor, making facing them in melee one of the more impractical things to do. However, both units are not necessarily good alone-- however potent they may be when grouped up in large masses, for their weaknesses are just as heavy as their strengths. Once again, they are slow; archers, especially cavalry archers, will be able to kite these units around, and hand cannoneers will make teutonic knights not have the happiest of days. Pikemen, monks, and Mameluke will eat war elephants alive, while Teutonic knights will be destroyed by anti-special/anti-infantry units like the Japanese and Aztec unique units, and war elephants. Both will be absolutely eaten up by siege because they are so slow-- though massed Teutonic Knights alongside massed siege makes a good pairing, with the siege dealing with most things the TK's cannot and vica-versa. These units will tear down the world when they are in mass, but need assistance to do such things from units who are better equipped to deal with things that they cannot.

i can assure you, when you are at the point in imperial where you consider making spears or skirms as turks, you are probably dead already. Turks is either Janis or Cav archers combined with Hussar and Bombard cannons. Camels are also nice, especiallyfor castle age and early imp

@@thrashobi but I want the numbers on it damnit! Besides what about Persian longswords? We need a long video about bad ideas like non heavy cavalry archers without thumb ring.

Persian longswords might do the job to counter halbs if you go War Elephants. but you dont go War Elephants in a 1v1, and in a TG it should be your teammates job to protect them from Halbs

@@thrashobi I'll wait for the math to come back

Turks get full up skirms, but not elite. So they can use hussar+skirms combo pretty well. Spearmen are terrible indeed. Spanish archers are one of the best in feodal age because fletching only cost 100 food and 0 gold! In castle age you can easily switch to full up cav archers with also cheap blacksmith upgrades! Persian longswords can be useful vs eagles spam, but in imp I think handcanoneers are way useful.

We need answers!

If I remember correctly, the maximum number of arrows fired are limited and a town center reaches that point even before 15 vills (citation needed)

He speaks very clearly and uses pretty simple sentence structure. Makes sense

Yeah but with the tuetons extra vill space I think they could win

Imagine all bonuses and armor classes showing in the tech tree. That would be nice

"boni" this guy Latins

I hope the remaster actually show all of this in an user friendly interface if you actually checked

@@jonaswollenweber No need to imagine it - just search for extended help in the steam workshop and your wish comes true ;)

The original! The very first Peter Griffin on RU-vid!

Nope, TC arrows do not have that bonus.

High five! :P

Actually, he's probably happy he will have content to make videos for a long time.

Most likely a bug like the camels being ships.

Where's the connection between RCT2 and AoE2?

@@Jixxor marvel vos made a q and a recently where he said he likes SotL and i wanna see them make a video together, would be awesome :D

You can’t even enter towers you dumb mangonel.

Don't listen to him. Mangonels are excellent against towers!

All garrisoned arrows behave the same, regardless of the unit that causes them. Bombard Towers don't have bonus damage like that though.