hey guys spirit of the law here in this
video we're going to be looking at the
Lithuanians in Age of Empires 2 from a
historical perspective focusing not so
much on gameplay but instead the
connection between their bonuses and
tech tree to the Lithuania of the past
now the Age of Empires 2 timeline is
generally from around the mid 400s
during atilla's invasion of the Western
Roman Empire up to somewhere around the
1500s the Battle of Lepanto for example
was in 1571 and is included as a mission
that you can play now the Baltic
ancestors of the Lithuanians had
inhabited the region since the 3rd
millennium BC but it's really in the
second half of the Age of Empires
timeline that we see Lithuania emerge as
a major player in Europe first as an
independent Kingdom and Grand Duchy and
eventually into a Commonwealth with
Poland in 1569 which is right around the
end of the game's time period during
that time they're probably best known
for both being the last European state
to convert from paganism to Christianity
along with their victory over the
Teutonic order in the Lithuanian crusade
a ton of this is referenced through
their design in Age of Empires 2 let's
check them out
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to start with I first want to address
why they're in the last khan's expansion
at all when you think of cons you
probably think of people like chinggis
khan or Kublai Khan
it's also possible you're a student and
think of free tutorials on the Internet
so what's the Lithuanian connection well
their first and only official King Mann
dogus is credited with stopping the
advance of the Tatar stored the Baltic
Sea presumably some other Lithuanians
helped as well but as always the King
gets the credit despite the fact that
most of the peasantry was pagan Madoka's
himself was officially Christian the
in-game history section seems to make
the connection that Mendoza's conversion
led to his assassination another version
of the story I've seen is a lot more
scandalous though when his wife died in
1263 he took her sister as his new wife
surprisingly enough this didn't sit well
with her current husband de Montes and
teaming up with Mendoza's nephew
assassinated min dogus along with his
two sons not a very Christian thing to
do
de Montes then went on to become an
orthodox saint though so good for him
there are other important rulers that I
could point out but to keep it brief the
most famous is vite outis who is the
leader of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
when they in Poland decisively defeated
the Teutonic order at the Battle of
Grunwald and speaking of which let's
take a look at the Lithuanian unique
unit very likely designed with that
battle in mind now the latest was a
social group in Lithuanian society that
made up the core of the military staff
either directly as soldiers or in
associated rules like breeding horses
the ability of their attacks to ignore
enemy armor of course works especially
well against Teutonic Knights they also
happen to be good against Bowie ARS and
there is a historical connection for
that as well as the Grand Duchy of
Lithuania expanded it brought them into
conflict with the East Slavic Duchy of
Moscow a predecessor of Russia Moscow
was the little Duchy with big dreams and
even then it became a bit of an
overachiever those times would come
later though and the Lithuanian 's wants
some major battles against them like at
the Battle of orsha
once city of particular focus was small
against which was incorporated into the
Duchy of Lithuania making it Lithuania
's most populous city at the time
now boyars weren't unique to the Duchy
of Moscow but did make up the highest
echelon of Nobles just below princes
during this time period historically
they should also be good against Attar's
and Mongols as in addition to resisting
ever being incorporated into those
empires the lithuanian expansion would
mostly be territory from vassals of the
Golden Horde represented by the Tatars
and aged vampires the greatest victory
over the Golden Horde was at the poorly
documented Battle of blue waters we
don't know a lot about it but my guess
is that the Tatar is either weren't
using their Hill bonus or the general
just didn't micro very well next up
let's take a look at their bonuses and
I'll talk about how they may have been
inspired or just coincidentally connect
to real events the first is if they
start with an extra hundred and fifty
food now an abundance of food might not
be what you think of first when you
think of Lithuania with its cold winters
at its greatest extent though the Grand
Duchy had a lot of fertile land
including parts of modern-day Poland and
modern-day Ukraine
remember climate in the Middle Ages went
through a period of being especially
warm and wet which is great for
agriculture the Medieval Warm Period
roughly coincides with what's considered
the beginning of Lithuania as a unified
state so starting off with a little
extra food isn't completely random
farmers in the region we're also able to
sow winter rye and keep it fields in
uninterrupted use throughout the year
excellently modeled by the automatic
farm Ricci queue for at minimal downtime
you may have also noticed quite a spear
theme to the civilizations bonuses
between faster Huba tears and
skirmishers a unique tech for them as
well as their unique unit historically
they were known for using Spears and
shields extensively and the average
soldier would have only light armor
those elements do seem to be captured
between either the spear or the
skirmisher now while the skirmisher
itself isn't a super-realistic unit
throwing a seemingly infinite number of
javelins it seems to me like it
represents peasants using low-quality
bows and slings their most creative
bonus though is that their nightline and
unique unit get one more attack for each
relic garrisoned well on the one hand
that might reference the religious zeal
of the pagan Lithuanians I think this
could also be a reference to Polish
heavy cavalry having potentially the
strongest heavy cavalry in the game
implies to me that the Polish Lithuanian
union is being partially represented
here Lithuania itself was much better
known for light cavalry
than anything resembling the paladin if
true that there's a little bit of Poland
mixed into this bonus in the tech tree
it's too bad the devs remove the relic
bonus from affecting the Hazara as the
Hazara model itself is clearly inspired
by the famous Polish winged his arse
obviously the decision for that was
based on balance though as has ours with
+8 attack worked pretty crazy that's not
to say Lithuania didn't employ its own
cavalry and had standout moments though
at the battle of grunwald between a
Lithuanian polish Alliance pitched
against an army of Teutonic Knights the
Lithuanian cavalry were initially driven
off by the Teutonic order but returned
and maneuvered behind the main line
routing the enemy and turning the tide
of the battle next up their team bonus
is that their monasteries work 20%
faster this is pretty clearly a nod to
their being the last two pagan state in
Europe to adopt Christianity and not for
want of trying by the Catholic Church
Lithuania as earliest mention in a
surviving text was in fact a reference
to the execution of a saint
and his 18 companions who were there
trying to spread Christianity in 1009
thats maybe not the best first
impression for the rest of Western
Europe even after becoming an officially
Christian state on paper in 1379
paganism remained dominant among the
peasantry for the next 200 years in the
end the church got their way though with
around three-quarters of Lithuania now
identifying as Catholic though the most
recent numbers I could find were from
2011 in a way it's too bad the Teutons
already have the conversion resistance
bonus since that would have worked for
this civilization really well moving on
to their unique text the first is Hill
for it's giving their town centers an
extra three range now the idea of trying
to secure the high ground isn't a novel
one and probably most civilizations have
built hill forts at one point or another
in this case though it's probably
referencing that lithuanian x' had a lot
of hill forts that were either built or
expanded to defend towns and river
crossings from invasions by again the
Teutonic Knights the hills were usually
flattened on top and given steeper
slopes for greater defensive advantage
with additional fences barriers towers
and walls one system of hill forts was
built to prevent Teutonic knight
incursions and another was created at
the border with Livonia to cut off the
possibility of joint action between the
Teutonic and livonian orders as one
example the hill fort of men VIII Gallus
was attacked by two
McKnight's over 20 times throughout
history another hill fort called Virata
was defended by men dogus himself during
an internal war against his nephews in
1251 considering all the invasions they
were stood by Teutonic Knights Mongols
and Eastern Slavs a good defensive bonus
it makes a lot of sense to me there
other unique tech is tower shields
giving their spears and skirmishers plus
one pierce armor now the tower shield
itself is a rectangular shield that
protects more of the body than other
common shield types you might even
recognize the tech from Age of Empires 1
where it was for all infantry now
Lithuanian infantry used a unique style
of tower shield with a distinctive shape
that's often replicated and even used
ceremoniously today I still think it's
unfortunate they don't have the last
armor upgrade or the tower shields
doesn't add more like +2 or +3 pierce
armor for pikes as they don't end up
being especially good against ranged
units there is some truth though to
missing the last armor tech as
lithuanian czar often described as
relying on lightly armored infantry even
in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth
the elite infantry was usually made up
by mercenaries which again shows up in
the mediocre barons tech tree they were
also relatively slow to adopt siege
again reflected in their tech tree
giving you just the bare bones now you
might think that their Navy should be
really good considering they had access
to the Baltic Sea and even to the Black
Sea for a period of time but neither
Poland at Norcliffe Alania ever invested
enough in their navies to become a
strong presence which is reflected in
the lack of naval bonuses in the game
it's nice to see that the tech tree is
open enough to suggest that they could
have had a good Navy if they've
committed them with the bonuses and tech
tree now out of the way I want to take a
look at their coat of arms and wonder of
course in definitive edition
civilizations are now represented by a
coat of arms the symbol used is called
the columns of get amoenus it was
definitely used by Vitas as his personal
insignia and would have been in common
use during the wars with the Teutonic
order including the battle of grunwald
the official coat of arms of Lithuania
has been around since 1366 and could
have been used in the game but as you
can see it's pretty intricate in
comparison in Age of Empires at least it
wouldn't have been as quick and easy to
identify nobody's quite sure what it's a
picture of but they refer to as columns
personally it reminds me of a fondue
fork but maybe
just getting a little hungry next up
because I know you're wondering they're
wonder is the trakai castle which was
completed during the life of eat out is
the great and is in fact where he died
an interesting fact is that there was an
earlier castle in the same region that
was attacked before completion keep in
mind this was before the days you could
just delete partially built castles to
pre-fund some of their cost despite the
setback a stronger castle was built in
the area this time on an island which
sounds like a good cost-cutting measure
for the moe that's the castle that's
still standing and you can visit today
partially due to its location just west
of the Lithuanian capital it held
strategic importance as the political
and administrative center of the Duchy
as well as housing the State Treasury so
that's the Age of Empires Lithuanian
versus history let me know if you guys
want this to become a regular series
following each civil review as a change
of pace if you know a lot about
lithuanian history and noticed a
connection that i didn't or caught a
mistake that I made definitely share it
below that's all for this one though
thanks for watching guys I'll see you
next time
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