hey guys spirit of the law here in this video we're going to be taking a look at the turks and
specifically how the design of the civilization evolved between age of kings released in 1999 and
the most current version of the game in 2022 this is the 10th of the original 13 civilizations we're
looking at in our through the ages series and i'd argue they're one of the ones that has changed the
most since the early days largely thanks to how differently gunpowder itself is handled
let's check them out jumping back in time to the original release of age of kings turks had some
pretty notable differences to their bonuses first their gunpowder hp bonus used to give plus 50
which is a big jump and specifically mentions their gunpowder techs were half the cost of other
civilizations if you're a newcomer to the game you might think that means chemistry or be otherwise
confused about what text they're talking about getting a discount the reason for any confusion
is that of the five texts this was originally referencing only two still exist originally
gunpowder units were actually significantly more difficult to access one example is the tech hand
cannon which was required before hand cannoneers could be trained with a significant food cost
and a fairly long 50 second research time there was another similar tech for bombard cannons and
for cannon galleons as well all of this on top of the requirement of course to get chemistry first
at this point the only two of the five gunpowder attacks remaining are the bombard tower which
turks still have a discount when researching as well as the elite cannon galleon upgrade
their next bonus was that their gold miners were 15 faster which you may recognize as
being a little weaker than the 20 it is today just like they do now they got chemistry for
free and also the light cavalry upgrade which is now a significantly better bonus as it extends to
later added hussar finally they also had the exact same team bonus for faster gunpowder unit creation
maybe their largest change since the early days though has been some tweaks behind the scenes to
their unique unit the janissary originally they had significantly lower attack but a hidden bonus
against infantry and buildings to compensate the anti-infantry aspect makes him sound very similar
to the hand cannoneer which has always had 10 bonus damage against infantry in fact they may
sound too similar but one notable difference in the aoe2 alpha is that hand cannoneers had
a minimum range just like skirmishers whereas janissaries didn't which was a description that
accidentally carried through to release despite the minimum range being removed at the last minute
janissaries also distinguished themselves by having one more range which they still have today
and can make them especially dangerous in castle age elite janissaries are also unusual as being
the only land unit besides the manganese line that still have zero frame delay meaning they're more
responsive to your attacking commands than other units including the hand cannon ear originally the
units weren't going to be as similar janissaries were at one point intended to be a durable archer
unit which actually would have made more sense in castle age than early access to gunpowder without
chemistry and i've even seen speculation that the imperial upgrade would then turn them into a hand
cannon variant instead though what we got was the janissary as a gun powered unit from the start
setting a precedent for spanish and age of conquerors to also have a castle age gunpowder
unique unit alpha version janissaries were also visually different and that they had large hats
inspired by illustrations of janissaries and especially the more elite solaks and in fact
that's the version that appears in early official manuals late in development however microsoft
lawyers got involved and made them remove the hats giving the hat-less version we ended up with
the aoe2 wiki says this is because testers and ensemble employees would comment that the
janissary looked like hooded units you probably shouldn't have in your game and while i haven't
found that claim in a more official source it at least seems like a plausible explanation
peterson mentions at one point that lawyers would never have allowed them put the pope in the game
and maybe someone thought janissary hats were too similar to the pope which to me has a much closer
resemblance in fairness the original game was significantly more pixelated and it seems to have
been a decision made in an abundance of caution to this day though a version with the tall hats
still exists in the scenario editor under the name royal janissary i should point out though
at other times it seems microsoft's lawyers were a bit more brave in handling small controversies
on a previous video i made covering the real world maps sandy petersen commented that korean
officials threatened to arrest ensemble studios representative in seoul because they hadn't named
the sea of japan map sea of korea in this case they didn't fully back down at least
in the english version of the game adding east sea in brackets in addition to the original name
as a pragmatic compromise wisely though when the game language is set to korean it sticks with the
name east sea getting back to the turks though the original design was very clearly trying to make
their identity the gunpowder civ in age of kings and to keep them as a late bloomer which i think
is still a fair description today the conquerors expansion in 2000 though brought a number of
significant changes first their gunpowder unit hp bonus was dropped from plus 50 percent to 25 and
the new unique tech artillery was also introduced giving extra range to cannon based units and
buildings janissaries were also overhauled gaining more base attack but losing their bonus against
infantry and buildings altogether this made them a better generalist unit against things like heavy
cavalry while also letting hand cannoneers keep more of the anti-infantry specialty
increasing the difference between those two units the janissaries accuracy was also
reduced while the handcannon ears was improved the conqueror's expansion is also when their
free like cavalry upgrade was helped greatly with the introduction of both hazards and bloodlines
getting bloodlines as well as thumb ring and parthian tactics also greatly improved their
cavalry archers and it was really decisions made in the conqeror's expansion more than anything
else that decided which civilizations were going to have cavalry archers as a viable option at the
same time sandy petersen specifically mentions not budging on giving pikemen to keep turks in
check and while i've never seen them considered top tier on open maps their large imperial age
power spike has always made that something to be wary of from a design perspective a removal of the
hand cannon and bombard cannon prerequisite texts in the conqueror's expansion also allowed for a
viable fast imperial strategy as turks even with their discount and free chemistry it was still an
extra barrier in both resources and even more critically time where it would take almost an
extra minute longer to create your first gunpowder units suddenly in conquerors and retroactively
applied to age of kings as well the second you hit imperial age you could begin producing hand
cannons and bombed cannons which led to the rise of turks as the fast imperial civilization on
civ on any map building off of that the forgotten expansion in 2013 tried to expand the turks
identity to include cavalry archers introducing a unique tech that gave them at least statistically
maybe the strongest cavalry archers in the game the only other small fix introduced was the elite
janissaries creation time had previously not been affected by their team bonus which was likely
unintended and fixed shortly after in african kingdoms their gold miners were buffed from 15
to 20 faster turrets around this time were not considered very good mostly due to a lack of
early bonuses and a heavy reliance on gold while this bonus seemed geared to help in the mid game
with everything from archers and cavalry archers to knights and camels to give an anecdote of the
general sentiment from the time in zero empire's list of the worst 1v1 civilizations in aoe2 turks
were listed as number one unfortunately we don't know the online win rate stats from the time but
presumably they weren't doing great another buff albeit an indirect one in african kingdoms is that
the berber's genitour team unit was added which while probably not designed with turks in mind
ended up giving them a great replacement for the elite skirmisher as turk genitours benefit from
their cavalry archery unique attack even after both direct and indirect buffs heading into 2019's
definitive edition turks were still struggling to address that the scout line was given plus one
pier summer and the elite janissaries accuracy was improved to 65 percent gunpowder projectiles were
also sped up by about a third as part of a general push for better hand cannoneers making their shots
a bit harder to dodge overall as i said off the top it really feels like turks have changed quite
a bit even if other civilizations technically have had a greater number of total changes over time
they really double down on the scout line and cavalry archer as units to build around which
has made turks feel at least more interesting to play they're still completely unique for lacking
the combination of elite skirmisher pikeman and onager making them very reliant on gold
and i can't see that ever changing as it's become such a trademark of the civilization
despite all that and the many civilizations that have since been added the gunpowder identity has
stuck and players have found ways to make a fast imperial into hand cannoneers or castle drops with
janissaries very potent strategies on a special arena even after the addition of the polls in
bohemians turks are still regarded as a top-tier arena civ which is also backed up by the stats
even on open maps like arabia though they really aren't in a bad spot these days by any means
and the improvements to their scout line and gold income seem to have helped stabilize them in the
early game while on some level those changes aren't in keeping with the concept of a late
bloomer gunpowder focus civ it's also important to recognize with the ever rising skill level leading
to a general speeding up of the game a purely late game civ just isn't viable and some compromise
was needed that'll do it for this one though and hopefully that was an interesting look back at a
very unique feeling civilization thanks for watching and i'll see you next time