Hey guys Spirit of the Law here
Today we're looking at the moments when there is some pretty funny logic in Age of Empires
Now, I don't mean this topic in a mean-spirited sort of way
And obviously we all have a ton of respect for the people who made the game
They did a great job and it's a lot of fun to play
Of course, you should be playing it for its entertainment as a game
and not for its historical accuracy and bulletproof logic
Sometimes though there's a noticeable discrepancy between what would happen in reality
and what happens in the game
enough so that you just have to laugh
We're just used to these things now
but there were moments where we scratched our head the first couple times we played
or if we think about them too hard
So I'm going to be doing a top 20 countdown
And there's nothing too specific about the ordering
Although in general the ones that I always consider the weirdest have been placed furthest in the list
I also can't take credit for all of these
as there's that Age of Empires meme that I've seen before and that a few of these came from
And on Cysion website; he has another list of this
I highly recommend you check out his list for more awesome ones that I left out
And if you don't know Cysion is the lead designer of the Forgotten Empires expansion
And if I had to make a list of five people in the Age of Empires community
that you should probably know the name of
I would say he's one of them
But with that let's get started with this top 20 countdown
Starting things off, at number 20 is buildings lighting on fire
So this happens when they're hit by swords, arrows or anything else
Look, I get the idea that the arrows might be flaming
but you can't tell me this elephant has flaming tusks
Sort of related to this idea
it's a bit hard to believe that these buildings can be on fire for hundreds of years in game time
and yet never burn down or have the fire burn out
If the building was on fire but otherwise perfectly functional for the entire middle ages
I would think that would be pretty notable
Number 19: Staying with buildings for a minute here
Why does it take longer to repair than to build?
To be fair it does take half as many resources to repair as to build from scratch
but I'm a bit confused as how you can build a house from nothing faster
than you can repair one that's still standing
Number 18: Five elephants on a boat
It's a little strange that transport capacity is dictated by the number of units
and not by the weight of the units or even the size
Apparently, the ship can accommodate five elephants and yet not six villagers
Despite the fact that a villager should be less than a tenth the size of an elephant
Perhaps there are five rooms on the boat
and everyone in the civilization is very picky
about the fact that they do not share rooms with each other
And each of them take one of the very large rooms to themselves
Still you got to think if each of these rooms can hold an elephant
there probably could have been room for one more villager in this situation
Tough luck lady
Number 17: Barracks costs wood, but appear to be made out of stone
Now, Barracks aren't the only example of this and there's a few Wonders that we could include here as well
but this Dark Age Britons Barracks is clearly made out of stone
The Feudal Age Barracks is mostly stone
and Castle Age Barracks is also mostly stone
So why does it cost 175 wood?
The Japanese Castle is clearly made out of a lot of wood and yet it costs only 650 stone.
I love the inclusion of different architectural styles
just may have been cool to include the materials that they're supposedly made out of
Number 16: Everything is in color
Look everyone knows that the world was black and white before the 1940s
We have video evidence of this
Why is Age Empires in color if it's supposedly from an era before color was invented
Hang on… I'm actually being told it was only video that was black and white before the 40s, not real life
Okay, assuming that's true
Number 16 we'll replace with: "Why can't you trade with your own markets?"
If the rationale between trade being more valuable between far regions is:
"You have something we want over there and we have a different luxury goods over here, so let's trade"
Then why does it have to be between a market owned by someone else?
Are they saying the trade can't happen within an empire
or that it can't be tax for some reason?
Number 15: Sheep can explore
What is this?
Are we telling the sheep where to go?
Are they just choosing these routes by themselves as they systematically explore the area for us?
Are they that smart?
If they're that smart then why are they coming back to be killed?
They should be making a break for it
Even if they do come back how are we getting the information from them?
Is there some lost art of sheep whispering?
Sort of related: I want to know why this wolf is just letting the sheep casually stroll by
Something here just isn't adding up with the sheep
Number 14: Why do Villagers know nothing about the surrounding area at the start of the game?
I want to know how is there a village in the middle of nowhere
and they know nothing about what's around them
How do they get there? There's no path to the edge of the map
"Oh, well the four of us just woke up here and built this town"
"but never thought to – I don't know – find a source of food, maybe some water…"
Isn't that the most important thing to make sure you have access to when you start a city?
Number 13: While I'm on the topic of your starting village
Can someone explain how one Villager can populate a new village?
Like reproduction-wise that is
You know what even if we're starting with three Villagers
I'm still skeptical
I get the feeling there's a lot of recessive traits in this population… if you know what I'm saying
Number 12: Villagers can't walk through trees
This gives us all a little surprise the first time we try
Now, I get that the trees themselves are solid and you can't walk through one of them
but there is got to be enough room for you to slip between these trees
I mean you barely have to turn sideways
Even if this is some sort of superstitiousness on the part of the Villagers
why can't the wolves go through the trees?
I mean these palm trees aren't even close
there's area between them that doesn't even have shade
That's how much space there is between them
Number 11: Sort of related
Why can't Villages walk through a one percent completed building?
This isn't just your own Villagers, but even enemies
I'm surprisingly okay with the fact that a building is a pile of materials at 99 percent
but instantly becomes a complete building at 100 percent
that actually doesn't bug me
The fact that wolves politely stop chasing you to get out of your way while you build is kind of crazy though
Why does everyone including nature have so much respect for your construction sites?
The insanity doesn't stop there though
Number 10: Even when the building is done, they can't walk through it
Yes, that's right
You build a house that clearly has a door on it and presumably one on the other side
and they can't walk through it
Okay, maybe there isn't a door on the other side
But why do I have to build all these houses if no one can even go in them?
They can't even walk through this Market, and it looks pretty open to me on both sides
Number 9: Can we talk about houses a bit more?
Why can no one be born until I have enough houses for everyone?
No homelessness is a great thing for society to try to achieve
But why does this fishing ship even need a house?
You're telling me that all five of these units need a house
and all five of them can be flatmates in the same one? Really?
I guess I'm just trying to figure out how they're physically stopping new people from being born
until there are houses for everyone
Is there really no natural birth happening here?
Still a better love story than Twilight
Number 8: Stepping back from Villagers and towns for a minute
Why is the King so fast?
Now, I'm obviously not the first one to wonder about this
and I get it from a game making perspective...
but come on!
He could be on a horse or something
He's not even a fit looking guy
This dude is dressed up like an Eagle and can't even beat him in a race
That being said, maybe he's letting the King win
The Eagle dude is probably like:
"Whoa my lord you're so fast I could never keep up with you"
Let me put it this way: do you think Kim Jong-un ever loses a race?
I don't think so
The King's probably like:
"I'm the fastest guy in the kingdom anybody that beats me in a race must have cheated. Kill them!"
And everybody's like "Oh, snap! Let's just slow down here a little bit"
El Cid's over there saying:
"Easy there ???, let's not do anything rash or this could turn into the Godfather real quick"
Number 7: Monks carry relics larger than they are
Unless that relic is full of helium
I don't see how it could possibly be lifting this. It's bigger than he is
It doesn't even slow him down!
He walks just as fast
Number 6: The Chinese invented block printing
but they don't get access to it in the game
Now, this opens a huge set of questions about weird technologies
that were done obviously for game balance reasons
and it opens questions about every civilization
Like why do Aztecs have guys who can carry gunpowder, but they can't use guns?
Why do huns have universities and other historical anomalies like:
Why did William Wallace won the battle of Falkirk in a tutorial?
And why did the English supposedly lose the battle of Harfleur?
I've chosen to focus on Chinese block printing though
because it really wouldn't compromise the competitive balance
between the civs at all to give them this technology
And it's one of those times where the history of the technology is widely known
If you don't like my choice for some reason
then we'll substitute it with the Chinese not having access to the Hand Cannoneer
It's all under the same banner here and I notice the Chinese seem to be getting the worst of it
Number 5: You can convert units with Monks and they join your side
Look, I'm not even sold that converting someone's religion means they'll necessarily join your side in a war
But it gets ten times worse when that's a Christian monk converting a unit that's also from a Christian nation
I'd be okay if these were spies bribing someone
I mean that makes sense
But converting them when they're currently stabbing or shooting you from long range... No
They don't even have to be in bow-and-arrow range for this conversion to work
The explanation of this conversion is literally hand-waving
Number 4: To go one further – Why does this work with non-humans?
How can you change an elephant, siege weapon or building's religion?
I know I mentioned this before probably in the Persian overview
But it's just a logic hole that I feel could have been replaced by any of a number of different explanations
Maybe regular units need spies to bribe them
and buildings or siege need engineers to come in and convert them or something
I don't know, but this monk thing just really pushes it for me
Naturally, buildings are the most stubborn to have religious debates with
of all the non-human convertible things so they take the longest
Number 3: Rams attacking farms
Can someone explain to me how this ram is possibly hitting this farm
Ram swings in the air; farms are plants and seeds in the ground
Something about this just doesn't compute
Now, I get it – if driving the ram over the farm destroyed it
That would be kind of cool, but attacking it?
After few ram hits the farm lights on fire
But don't worry those farms are completely functional while on fire
and you can harvest just as much food from them
Number 2: Teutonic Knights can take more hits than a building
Yes, the Teutonic Knights can take one damage from Tarkans
So they can ultimately survive a hundred hits
Teutonic houses take less than a hundred hits from Tarkans
Yes, I'm cherry-picking here a little bit because Tarkans have a damage bonus to houses
But come on a Teutonic Knight takes longer to destroy than a house?
This is also assuming that the Tarkan is invincible
and can keep fighting as long as it takes to bring the Teutonic Knight down
This just shouldn't be possible should it?
The Huskarl gets an honourable mention here as well
For being similarly absurd with being able to take 70 close range arrow shots before it dies
Number 1: I've asked this before
Why do Villagers put away their bow and arrow when they switch from hunting to fighting?
It just makes no sense, what are you doing?
They have this awesome range attack
And they abandon it when they go into combat against a unit that actually fights back
They even get flaming shots after your research Chemistry
"Oh man guys, we have these flaming arrows and hunting bows; better defend ourselves with knives"
Here the Scout Cavalry drops in on the hunting party so they obviously have their bows with them
They were just using them and they put them away to try to chase him down with knives
What are you doing guys?
This was actually worse in Age of Empires classic because in the first game
they did more damage with their spears that they used to hunt animals
Thankfully the attack powers been brought back down
and it's the same 3 attack with the bow and the knives
But I still shake my head every time they bring a knife to a bow fight
And I've been playing this game for quite a while
Anything that still confuses me to this day after all these games I've played
has to be number one for me
Feel free to let me know any others that you think I may have missed
As for the next video
I'm going to be looking at what's the best way to get your units away from a Town Center
that you've come a little bit too close to
That's all for this one. Thanks for watching guys, and I will see you next time