hey guys spirit of the law here in this
video we're going to look at the classic
medieval question
bongbo or crossbow during the high
middle ages the longbow had a faster
firing rate and
greater range but on the other hand took
years of practice to master
thinking about a typical early game as
britons you'll usually open up with
archers and upgrade them to crossbows
when you hit castle age
but the question is whether it's better
to stick with the crossbow line and
continue into arboles
or do you switch into their unique unit
as quickly as possible
in this video i'll break down the
differences between the two so you can
see
why you might prefer one over the other
and if and when that transition makes
sense
let's check it out
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starting with their cost each longbowman
is five more resources overall
but notice they're cheaper in terms of
gold in castle age wood is arguably
equal to or even more valuable than gold
because of all the buildings and farms
you'll be making
so i consider the long women the more
expensive unit in cass leech to produce
which is made even worse by the 650
stone per castle
used to actually train them longbowmen
are created at castle
slightly faster than crossbows at the
archery range even with the britain's
faster r2 range team bonus
but even still it's much easier to have
two three or four archery ranges than
even one
or two castles for archers which really
need to be masked up to be effective the
number of castles you can make starts to
be a factor to consider
but maybe long women's stats justify
that investment
let's see we'll start with castle h for
the comparison where both units have the
same
hp same armor and even the same 8 range
thanks to a britain bonus to foot
archers
i'm only really interested in britain
crossbows here simply because they're
the only civilization that have longbows
so it's a question
unique to them at first glance the only
advantage longbows give you is one more
attack the two units have the same
reload time between shots which
historically is a little odd as longbows
were famously faster firing than
crossbows
but for our purposes that makes
comparing their attack pretty
straightforward
one hidden difference though is in their
accuracy longbowmen and castleage are 70
accurate as compared to the crossbows 85
britons don't have access to thumb ring
of course so they never get to 100
accuracy now accuracy doesn't always
work how it sounds and the proportion of
missed shots depends on their distance
to the target
while longbows do become noticeably less
accurate as targets get farther away
both units will have near perfect
accuracy up close
putting it all together in castlage with
equal resources crossbows win
a straight fight at a moderate distance
away from each other though the
crossbow's win
isn't by an especially wide margin
expanding that to a broader damage per
minute comparison at close range long
women are going to be doing more
damage over time against units with low
to medium pierced armor because of their
one extra attack
of course they also cost seven percent
more per unit and have worse accuracy
after correcting for those factors it's
the crossbow that actually appears to
give better value against targets with
zero to three pierce armor
the longbow in contrast is better
against units with four to six pierce
armor which is fairly high for a unit in
castle age
the exact numbers in the table aren't
important what you're seeing is
essentially the damage per minute for
each resource spent and higher numbers
simply mean you're getting more
bang for your buck against something
like fully upgraded knights with four
pierce armor at their maximum range
you're getting functionally the same
value from each unit when we factor in
their accuracy and higher cost
though up close the longbows extra
attack means they take out knights in 30
as opposed to 40 shots
any test done up close is gonna make the
longbowmen look especially good which is
a little strange to say when i think
about it
another specific matchup to know is
against spear units where crossbows get
plus three attack and long women get
plus
two so both units actually end up doing
the same damage
making crossbows the objectively better
choice as they do the same thing but
cheaper
skirmishers are another important case
to highlight and with castle age
upgrades they take 35 shots from
crossbowmen
and 18 from longbowmen it's a good
example of where one more attack can
make
a giant difference in practice now
that's not to claim that longbows are
cost effective against them skirmishers
are a hard counter to archers
but it is a common unit you'll run into
and they'll do better than you'd
probably expect
my takeaway is that considering the cost
of a castle and the archers you probably
already have
continuing with crossbows makes the most
sense in early castle age
and aside from better performance
against high pierced armor enemies the
longbow doesn't offer much of an
advantage in the mid game
there are civilizations like spanish
that can justify building an early
castle and going straight into their
unique unit
but i wouldn't put britons in that group
eventually you do want a castle for the
unique tech giving more range to foot
archers but in my mind crossbows went
out in castle age as the unit of choice
switching to the imperial age this is
where things get interesting
compared to arboles the elite longwoman
has one more attack one more range and
an extra pierce armor
the elite longbowmen upgrade costs over
twice as much as arbolest but the fact
that training a long woman costs
five less gold than training an
arbolester suggests that there's some
long-term value there
in imperial age where conserving gold is
more important than wood
i think the long woman feels like a
cheaper unit even if it's technically
more resources overall
balancing by total resources the elite
longbowman wins in a direct fight
remember the crosswoman won this test in
castle age and this is underselling the
long woman's gold savings by equating
gold with wood equally
arguably the most important difference
isn't even contributing here which is
their extra range
elite longbows outrage castles onagers
and just about
everything else with 12 range in total
britain are blasters aren't slouches
with their own
11 range but that only puts them equal
to many civilizations castles
less than bomber cannons and one tile
closer to onagers and skirmishers before
they can engage
the longbowman's range combined with
their extra attack really makes a strong
case that at some point you transition
to elite longbowmen once you have enough
castles and the game is looking like
it'll continue for a while
if you have a lot of crossbows left over
i think picking up the arbolest upgrade
is sensible to maximize the value of
what you already have
but moving forward into mid imperial age
and beyond longwomen start to make a
good case for themselves
to touch on their accuracy it's still 80
compared to the arbolester's 90. but a
bit of inaccuracy in the late game
doesn't bother me quite as much
it can actually give the effect of some
area damage when you manually target
something so a bit of inaccuracy isn't
universally a bad thing
repeating the damage per minute
calculation against anything with less
than 10
pierce armor you're getting more damage
per minute at close range from elite
longbowmen
correcting for their relative gold cost
and accuracy the elite long woman is
still giving better value across the
board
the only exception is against a unit
like the elite haskaro which takes 1
damage from either unit
and speaking of more specific match ups
add a couple more i wanted to highlight
just because of how often they'll be
encountered if you play as britons
there's no way to avoid them so it's
good to know how each of the units holds
up in comparison
against fully upgraded paladins one more
damage for the elite longbowmen means
they take them out in 45
as opposed to 60 shots up close where
accuracy is near 100
that's a significant edge maybe even
more importantly they take out fully
upgraded skirmishers in
12 as opposed to 18 shots dealing 50
more damage against such a common post
imperial counter unit is pretty
significant
of course the extra range is also going
to help in there as well
so altogether while in castle age i
don't think in the majority of
situations there's an incentive to make
long boasts over crossbows in imperial
age there's a good argument to be made
for that transition
to answer the debate of arbalest or
longbowmen i see it as more of a
crossbow into elite longbow game plan
where are blessed is just a way to get
value out of your existing crossbows
or if you simply don't have enough
castles to train longbows
long term and imperial age elite long
women look like the better choice
statistically especially after
considering their gold cost
i don't think slightly lower accuracy
changes that fact
of course britain our blasters are still
quite good with 11 range
and it's not to say that going full
arborist isn't a viable strategy
this is all just to provide some things
to think about the next time you
encounter the decision
that's all for this one though thanks
for watching guys and i'll see you next
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time
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you