hey guys Spirit at the law here in this video we're going to be talking about the hindustani's
unique unit the ghulam more specifically I want to look at the comparison that's often
made between it and the eagle warrior in a short video I made six months ago when the ghulam first
came out I framed them as a blend of the huskarl and the kamayuk with eagles being mentioned only
in passing but it is a tempting comparison many people pointed out and one that's only gotten
better over time with the nerf to the ghulam's HP making the two units even more similar on
the surface at least they have a lot in common they're the only infantry units to cost more gold
than food they both have high pierce armor they move fast and even have the same weaponry making
it look like the ghulam is almost just a reskin of course when we talk about Eagle Warriors there's
really three pretty different ones to think about as each is specialized with a unique flavor in
Imperial age to buff one of their stats whether it be attack armor or HP in Castle age though aside
from Aztecs creating them a bit faster they're all functionally identical side by side the ghulam has
one more attack but now the same HP after a recent significant nerf with fittingly a very similar
cost per unit as well weighted more toward gold than food in Imperial age it would probably be
more accurate to say the elite ghulam is similar to a baseline Elite Eagle Warrior without one of
the three civ specialty Imperial attacks of course those techs have a cost and it's not a small one
fully upgrading an eagle Warrior requires not just 1300 resources for the elite Tech itself but
another 1200 for any of the American civ's unique tax on top of 450 resources for the last infantry
armor upgrade I mentioned that one specifically because hindustanis missed that tech so in a way
they're getting their most upgraded version for a bit cheaper though it also means they
end with a bit less armor and we'll check later how much of a difference that makes in practice
the main takeaway though is Eagle Warriors are significantly more expensive to Tech into when
everything is considered in terms of some hidden attributes encapsulates the two units move at
the same speed though the elite Eagle gains a slight speed advantage in Imperial though
I don't consider it that important of an advantage as both can already chase down art Searchers where
they greatly differ is in their bonus damage and if anything this is where the comparison breaks
down the ghulam has a large bonus against archers reminiscent of a husk girl along with bonus damage
against Eagles and buildings which are both pretty standard bonuses for infantry unique
units Eagles on the other hand have a large bonus against monks along with some against
cavalry siege camels and chips strangely enough in fact there's no overlap in their bonus damage here
at all except in the case of a cavalry archer or camel archer which span multiple unit types
the ghulam is also arguably easier to mass given it's created during Castle age around three times
faster though obviously requiring a castle to be built first after the elite Eagle Warrior upgrade
though Eagle's creation time dropped significantly which is a huge hidden Improvement in Imperial age
that even with a few Barracks makes them very easy to spam the ghulam also features a unique ability
to attack through units dealing half damage to anything immediately behind their target
I personally like the detail that the ghulam has a longer spear to indicate this and it's similar
but slightly different than the kamayuk's longer range you can see they work in slightly different
ways but they both Excel against blobs of enemy units or especially archers that are trying to
Bunch themselves up against a tree line and a large pitched battle I'd say the cameos ability
is actually a little stronger though given it softens out pathing issues and lets more
units get in on the action while all of them are dealing full rather than any half damage in both
cases though the more of a choke point you have and the larger the battle the more you'll start
to gain an advantage against generic melee units so that's the side-by-side comparison of what each
unit brings to the table but now let's try to get a sense of what you can actually expect from them
in similar situations we'll look at all three Eagle civs separately as well so hopefully this
will also be a nice summary or refresher on the relative strength of each Eagle Warrior and how
they compare I generally like to start these comparisons with the units Head to Head since
I think it gives a quick and dirty summary of their strength though this time that's maybe
unfair given the ghulam as a bonus against Eagle Warriors with similar total resources the ghulam
pretty easily wins in Castle age given its extra damage contrast that with Imperial age though
where the Mayan Eagle Warrior surprisingly wins one-on-one and even from this test alone you can
get a sense of why players often say the Mayan Eagle Warrior is the strongest of the three of
course we need to keep upgrade costs in mind in which case countering ghulams with Mayan Eagle
Warriors sounds a bit tricky thinking about it more though Vines don't really have any of the
best counters to ghulams with no hand cannoneers or cavalry so this is a tough matchup for Mayans
all around and maybe Eagles are one of your better options even with the ghulam's extra pass through
damage a large group Mayan Elite Eagle Warriors still win so at least in their case fully upgraded
the elite ghulam is clearly weaker even with its bonus damage at the same time other American civs
fare worse in that matchup so in this case the civilization we're talking about has a large
impact on the outcome now what about the champion line I would say one of the least intuitive parts
of the game's counter system is that the champion line has huge bonus damage against Eagles and
trying to fight Swordsmen with the Eagles is a mistake you see low ELO players tried now and
again with disastrous results of course that's not true of the ghulam which isn't technically
an eagle Warrior as similar as it might seem long Swordsmen for example dominate Eagles in
Castle age whereas the ghulam and along Swordsmen are about equal from this you could argue you're
getting something similar to an eagle Warrior while standing up to one of their most threatening
counters of course considering their slow movement rate and how much more food intensive long swords
are compared to a ghulam I really don't like them as a counter unit unless you have a very
good infantry civ like Goths or Japanese and the ghulam is also much more useful for raiding
than the long sword switching to Imperial age the two-handed Swordsmen win one-on-one against either
unit though do noticeably better against Eagles again highlighting the importance of the hidden
bonus damage of course Champions are a pretty good counter against both after the ghulam's
recent Nerf even before factoring in their cheaper cost with supplies and much lower gold cost even
in a large-scale fight the pass-through damage doesn't overcome their disadvantage against even
generic Champions a similar but distinct Samurai though has a bit of a twist they deal bonus damage
against unique units which Eagles are not unique enough to receive that ends up flipping the result
with ghulam this time being quickly overpowered and Eagles actually a little better in that
matchup though obviously still not ideal moving on from infantry though which generally went in favor
of the ghulam let's take a look at the Eagle's biggest specialty monks Eagle Warriors have
some innate conversion resistance and in this test you can see the ghulams are universally converted
first with many of the Eagles taking the maximum conversion time the game allows even without faith
researched throwing in their bonus damage against monks as well this is one case where the two units
are really not all that comparable moving on to the ghulam's specialty though now let's see how
they both do against archers this is billed as the unit's specialty and yet in Cascades
they're identical the Eagles and how many arrows they can take which also happens to be about the
same tankiness as a fully upgraded Knight as well fighting up close though you of course have their
massive bonus as well as the pass-through damage which is especially useful against archers given
they tend to be bunched up in this test the ghulam end with significantly more HP and also
defeated their enemy much faster which has its own advantages switching to Imperial age though
the ghulam actually falls behind Alex at the Aztec eagle and how many arrows they can take
from an arbalester and in fact it's the Inca Eagle Warriors that shine here even fighting up close
while the ghulam defeat archers faster they end up losing a greater percentage of their HP compared
to Mayans and Incas in the same sort of test this surprised me a bit given the extra bonus damage
but In fairness minds and Incas have some pretty solid unique texts to help their Eagles shrug
off arbalesters and obviously compared to most infantry any of these are great options in fact
against archers and their different variations the comparison between the two units is pretty
much spot on somewhat related and again thanks to their High Pierce armor another famous role of the
eagle Warrior is as a rating unit assuming you have a healthy supply of gold coming in in this
case again the comparison is apt built between taking more arrows and moving a bit faster in
a vacuum I'd personally take the Mayan Eagle Warrior over the elite ghulam even Aztec Elite
evil Warriors are going to take out villagers in one fewer attack so there's an argument to
be made for them as a standout as well but to be clear in all cases you're getting a strong rating
unit assuming you have the goal to spend but now we come to the most interesting comparison
in my opinion which is Cavalry use actually spear units are good against Cavalry and Eagles have a
bonus against them whereas ghulam are allegedly weak to them with that being cited specifically
to start with the knight in Castle age both the ghulam and eagle takes six hits with all
upgrades but Castle age ghulam require five more of their own attacks to bring a knight
down with balanced resources that means ghulam lose and remember you need a castle to create
them so this is a tough matchup to even attempt in the first place Eagle Warriors on the other
hand are about evenly balanced with knights when resources are considered I sometimes think of
them as a mildly anti-cavalry unit because they have some bonus damage though in many cases that
extra attack only really brings them up to being on par with each other in fact I'd say the main
advantage Eagles have overnights is just that two Eagles cost significantly less food than
one night reducing the number of farms that you need in early Castle age even more revealing in
my opinion like Cavalry trades about one to one with an eagle Warrior but actually beats a ghulam
one-on-one considering even a fully upgraded light Cavalry is a reasonable soft counter to
ghulam in Castle age it's pretty obviously weak to Cavalry description really does fit in a way
that it doesn't for Eagles jumping to Imperial Age Again an elite ghulam survives about this
same number of hits is a non-minded elite Eagle Warrior but it's just dealing so much less damage
back that it's noticeably the worst out of the group and again in this case would be nowhere
near cost effective in contrast Eagles come close to dealing an equivalent value of damage to the
Cavalier implying this is a pretty balanced fight logically then of course paladins absolutely crush
the elite ghulam and only Mayan Eagle Warriors can hold up to paladins long term though you
would need to outnumber the paladins by quite a bit to actually make that work likewise the
hussar is again a surprisingly good match for the ghulam and actually wins one-on-one now you
do have camels as hindustani so maybe you're less worried about Cavalry than American civs would be
but especially late game the ghulam hasn't matched up well against any Cavalry we've seen so that's
the main unit types I want to highlight and coming back to the original question is the ghulam just
an eagle Warrior for hindustani I would say that's basically a fair assessment in Castle age where
eagles have an edge against Cavalry and monks that the ghulam doesn't but otherwise you're getting
something functionally similar and even a little better against archers in The Swordsman line in
Imperial age I would say they start to separate a bit with talk to your mind equal Warriors standing
out against even archers though considering upgrade costs ghulam is still giving great value
and are arguably a comparable but cheaper version you still have to be careful around Cavalry and
against other infantry but then you also have to consider their role in The hindustani's
Tech Tree hindustanis are a camel and gunpowder civilization which together is a combo that can
usually handle infantry and Cavalry just fine but is easily countered by mass archers it would take
a lot of gold to combine them all at the same time but I really see that as where the ghulam shines
giving at least something to threaten Mass archers and protect those core units in fact I think the
ghulam is no small part of why hindustanis are so strong at the moment as against Cavalry civs you
have camels and against Archer civs you have the ghulam which together give a very straightforward
game plan to counter many popular civs that specialize in either Cavalry or archers I wouldn't
say you have to make them every game especially against a Cavalry civ but it's certainly a
potent option and in many ways a more versatile anti-archer unit than Elite skirmisher for example
that'll do it for this one though and hopefully that helps with the unit and the different
Eagle Warriors into a bit better perspective thanks for watching and I'll see you next time