hey guys spirit of the law here you guys
have requested them a lot lately and
this overview is going to be all about
the Koreans they specialize in towers
and auditors which aren't things you're
probably used to based on your strategy
around well unless you're like me and
love Masana Jers in this video we'll
break down their bonuses unique units
and tech tree and see if we can make
sense of what are some really
interesting bonuses and units on paper
let's check it out
the Korean team bonus is that their mega
nails and auditors have plus one range
though in the expansion's it's changed
to reduced minimum range which is less
useful in my opinion but we'll save talk
about the expansions for a little bit
later the +1 range means Mangan elves
have 8 range in castle age which is one
more than a crossbowmen which they do
typically counter and that makes the
korean Manganiello extra effective in
that situation when this really gets
crazy though is in post Imperial age and
their siege auditors have 11 range which
to put in context is one less than an
elite longbowmen even a bombard cannon
with siege engineers only out ranges
korean siege auditors by - instead of
the usual four or five now bombard
cannons are normally a really strong
counter to auditors but against Koreans
it almost feels like the counters are
reversed if they're not paying attention
Korean see janitors even out range
Persian kelp Frank Mallya and Slav
castles buy one because they all lack
bracer speaking of Celts the best part
of this being a team bonus is that when
you're allied with other siege
civilizations it makes all of your
allies perform just that much better but
the cal ally for instance they not only
have their usual bonuses and texts like
faster firing and more HP on their
auditors but they also get that +1 range
moving on to their civilization specific
bonuses the first is that their
villagers have +3 line-of-sight we can
see it goes from a radius of 4 tiles of
site up to 7 just to visualize that in a
real game context you can see the Korean
villagers gain a lot more sight right at
the start and they become just as good
if not better at scouting your starting
area than the normal Scout that you
start with
apparently Koreans make the villagers
with the worst eyesight perform scouting
duties for some reason the only negative
thing to point out about it is unless
you're looking for missing sheep you
probably won't be scouting much with
villagers you walk slowly and have way
more value to you as resource collectors
I suppose it's true that they see wolves
coming from a bit earlier and so you're
more likely to be able to angle your
to get an elevation combat bonus or it
might be helpful every once in a while
to see enemy units or towers coming a
bit earlier than other civilizations
would in terms of early warning for
Lumberjacks for example it gives you
about the line of sight as having town
watch so I like to think of it as
comparable to that the second
civilization bonus is that their stone
miners collect 20% faster for people who
like specific numbers that improves the
collection rate by about 4 more stone
per minute per villager this is the
first hint of why the Koreans are
thought of as a tower civilization and
it makes tower rushing obviously more
effective to get a sense of how much it
helps you need 7 Korean stone miners to
keep 3 tower builders working constantly
whereas other civilizations need 8 I
don't really consider this much of an
economy bonus though since its
usefulness and feudal age depends on
going for the very specific strategy of
either towel rushing or saving up for
some kind of castle drop so it's pretty
limited in its flexibility I thought you
might be able to take advantage of it by
collecting stone and selling it as
opposed to mining gold directly in the
feudal age but the positive effect from
that with Koreans is negligible and it
gets you an extra 3 gold for the first
100 stones sold and for the next 100
sold it's less than 1 extra gold profit
and after that you're better off mining
gold directly so it doesn't seem like
it's worth the trouble
continuing the tower Rush theme though
the third civilization bonus is that
their tower upgrades are free although
the bombard cannon requires chemistry
first that's a pretty decent amount of
resources though most of that is coming
in the Imperial age where you'll have a
stronger economy anyway there's also the
research time saved to consider and that
comes in at just under 3 minutes which
isn't a lot but it is better than
nothing so there you go the tower
upgrades are coming in a little ahead of
the curve and the fact that we had the
earlier stone bonus means you even have
an extra Tower or two up no wonder
everybody says Koreans are a tower
rushing civilization it's about to get
even better though the 4th Civ bonus is
that their tower ranged not including
bombard towers increases by 1 in castle
and another one in Imperial that's on
top of towers having eight base range
and three more from blacksmith upgrade
for a total of 13 range and
post-imperial
that's pretty significant because one of
the towers arch-nemesis is the bombard
cannon and the Koreans 13 range means
that the only towers that can fire back
against all non Terk bombard cannons
extra range just makes your towers
better at everything they do whether
it's an offensive push to get villagers
off of a wood line or defensive around
your own town to protect your economy
this is even more true when we talk
about the expansions after the addition
of the new arrow slits technology so
that's the Koreans bonuses lots of tower
and a bit of Audigier stuff in there now
let's move on to their first unique unit
the war wagon the game says it's a
horse-drawn archery unit so it seems
intuitive that it's a variation of the
cavalry Archer though as a quick note in
the expansions they said one of the
things they changed was making the war
wagons correctly classified as cavalry
archers so I'm no Sherlock Holmes master
deduction but I believe that means they
weren't properly classified before let's
take a look at that
cavalry archers take bonus damage from
camels pikemen Halberdier and
skirmishers most of those are identical
for the war wagons except it looks like
they take slightly less bonus damage
from skirmishers in the expansions the
change seems to be that the war wagons
take the regular six damage from elite
skirmishers making them a little bit
better counter now so that's the hidden
bonus damage now let's take a look at
their stats compared to the regular
cavalry archers we can see the war wagon
is basically a much tanker version of
the cavalry Archer line with about
triple the HP of its cavalry Archer
counterparts as well as higher attack
more pierce armor combined with the
slightly less bonus damage from
skirmishers and the elite version even
has an extra range while costing
actually a bit less gold per unit
they're even created faster than cavalry
archers and see a bit further so what's
the downside well there's a few things
they cost three times as much wood to
require a castle to create cavalry
archers move noticeably faster and also
seem to fire about 25%
that still makes their damage output
less than the war wagon but not as far
behind as it initially appears a side
note I want to put in here is the war
wagons aren't particularly affected by
thumb ring and their accuracy isn't
increased at all by it in a previous
video on the thumb ring tech I found war
wagons with a third least affected
Archer unit in the whole game cavalry
archers on the other hand benefited by
far the most and basically demand that
you prioritize thumb ring if you plan to
use them which at 550 total resources is
not that far off the investment of a
castle let that sink in overall if
you're going for war wagons there's that
nice intrinsic savings that you don't
need to prioritize thumb ring or even
make archery ranges at all if you don't
want to looking now at the elite upgrade
it's fairly expensive at 1,000 wood and
800 gold and it basically gives you 50
extra HP and 1 extra range personally
I'm more interested in the extra range
than the extra HP since we'll probably
want something in front of your wagons
to keep the enemy Pikes engaged and the
extra range is going to let them attack
from a bit safer distance as well as
allow them to reach elite skirmishers
which up to that point out range them
buy one in general the big selling
feature of war wagons for me is the
relatively low rate of turnover so while
they're expensive to get up and running
leaving you a bit vulnerable while you
mash them up if you choose to go for
them and survive to that point you end
up being very efficient with your
population space there pierce armor also
makes them very effective against
archers and cavalry archers as an
outright counter
it's a side note for anyone wondering
while they do have a very similar
projectile animation to scorpions they
don't have the same ability to fire
through units which we can see here now
on the other side if you run into war
wagons yourself remember that they do
take bonus damage from pikes and
skirmishers while costing a lot to build
so those are good counter units units
with high pierce armor like house girls
and Eagle warriors are also going to be
strong as well as statistically powerful
units like paladins and war elephants
typically you'll see war wagons combined
with korean sea tonnages and halberdiers
to cover some of those we
this is and it can be a surprisingly
difficult combination to counter which
is why you're going to want to make sure
to attack the Koreans and their
economy as early as possible that's just
the first unique unit though Koreans are
lucky enough to have two so let's check
out the second on the water they have
the very unique turtle ship this sort of
looked like a short-range cannon galleon
but even more expensive compared
directly to an elite cannon galleon the
big thing that jumps out is that it has
less than half the range of its cannon
galleon counterpart the improvement is
almost double the HP greater attack and
better melee armor the thing is the
range is the cannon Galligan selling
feature so maybe they're not really like
the cannon galleon at all if we instead
look at them as a galleon replacement
they cost roughly three times the
resources and do seem to hold their own
when they're outnumbered by about three
to one in open water we can say then
that they are about equal when it comes
to resources spent of course leaning
more heavily on gold than wood and we
can definitely say they're better in
terms of getting the most out of your
population space so while your navy of
20 turtle ships cost the same number of
resources and 62 galleons and they can
hold up to them okay on the water that
situation gives you an extra forty two
population space to play with which
means a bigger economy or more land
units and plus they're built faster than
three galleons so you can build up your
fleet and replace it faster it's a
similar situation to the war wagon
though and that you need to have a
critical mass of them and the difficulty
isn't getting a recon imme to the point
that you can get up that initial group
as for how they perform against other
types of ships if we look at it from the
perspective that one turtle ship is the
equivalent of three galleons we can look
at how they do against the common naval
unit types in this particular setup we
see the turtle ship and three galleons
perform similarly against an enemy
galleon which lines up with the previous
test on the other hand we can see a
turtle ship seems to do much better in
terms of its proportional health
remaining against both heavy demolition
ships and
fire ships meaning that in closed
engagements like this if we look at the
percentage of health at the end compared
to the start the turtle ship is doing a
better job of holding up than three
galleons
the other thing to remember and we're
going off into mathematical territory
here is you're worse off losing two out
of three units then you are losing
two-thirds of the health on a much
stronger unit against the fast fire ship
in particular we can really see this
effect happening and the one galleon
remaining from that fight does one-third
the damage that the original three did
combined so you've lost two-thirds of
your offensive power there while the
turtle ship down to two-thirds health
still attacks for its full damage and
that's the hidden advantage of turtle
ships after a winning engagement they
can retain more of their damage output
potential then a larger Navy of galleons
that loses several ships once you have a
decent Navy with turtle ships in the
front as long as you're taking smart
fights and the damage you're taking is
reasonably distributed you retain that
offensive strength of your Navy much
longer than a galleon army with a
similar investment which is prone to
having ships picked off a last thing to
note is that their upgrade to a lead is
quite expensive at 1,000 food in 800
gold but for that you're getting 50%
more HP as well as a bit of extra armor
considering the high cost of each turtle
ship that pays off pretty quickly and
after eight or nine ships it's already
paid for itself moving on from the
unique units let's take a look at their
unique tech which is plus one range for
manga nails and on udders if that sounds
familiar it's because yes that was also
their team bonus but the idea is that
both of those stack it's a bit pricey at
800 wood and 500 gold and it's one of
those first time it's free second time
you got to pay double sorts of things
but it's definitely worth the investment
if you see yourself going for Auditors
which you should because of the best
unit in the game cue the entourage
now in the Celt overview I made a point
of showing how useful their 50% greater
HP is and that allows them to survive a
direct auditor show but it's interesting
to note that in mass AI auditor battles
the Koreans can actually come out on top
because of their greater range whether
or not that's better than the Celts
faster firing and more HP is kind of
subjective though and some people might
even like the faster-moving Mangal see
donnager is the best take a look now at
the HD expansions Castle age unique tech
it's that turtle ships move 15% faster
if we test them out before this tech
they're noticeably slower than Canon
galleons and galleons after this tech it
brings them up to still slower than a
cannon galleon honestly it doesn't feel
like this tech does a whole lot but it
also has a fairly low cost so you might
decide to grab it for a bit of
unexpected speed it's true that one of
the biggest problems I've found with
using the turtle ships is how hard it is
to force your opponent to engage them
and I can see that this is meant as an
attempt to address that other expansion
changes worth mentioning is first of all
like I said the team bonus is that their
minimum range is reduced so they can
fire at things from a bit closer but
lose one off their maximum range also
there's a new bonus of plus 25%
fortification build speed basically
Koreans build castles walls towers and
gates in 25% less time than other
civilizations but as I talked about in a
separate video if you're planning to
make fortified walls in the expansions
you should make them stone walls first
and then upgrade them after that because
something funky is happening with the
fortified walls build time the turtle
ships have been changed a little bit as
well and they no longer need a castle
and they're a tiny bit cheaper I think
they're just trying to make the unit a
bit more friendly to include in your
Navy and to me that's a good thing
because up till now I've really
amused the bore wagons now take that
bonus damage from anti cavalry Archer
units which was the change from four to
six bonus damage from skirmishers that I
talked about before and they also cost a
bit less now at a hundred and ten would
finally it's worth mentioning that
towers are better in general within the
expansions because of the arrow slits
technology so that could be seen as an
indirect Korean buff since they're one
of the few civilizations that would
strongly consider using towers anyway so
that's the bonuses unique units and
expansion changes now let's move on to
the tech tree starting with the archers
in general they have some good options
and texts and I'd say the war wagon
counts as a beefy cavalry Archer so we
can subtly include it in here as well no
early bonuses means that the archer rush
is mediocre or below average in feudal
age but after that I think the archers
start to get a bit better I'd give them
a B+ overall up next we have infantry
the Koreans are missing blast furnace
and have no infantry bonuses but I like
the Halberdier and the option for
champions I'd say it's a b-minus since
I'd consider a perfect tech tree without
bonuses to only be in the b or b plus
range up next we have the cavalry now
the hazhar seems really nice
until you notice the missing Imperial
aged blacksmith Tex and blood lines the
lack of bloodlines also means that the
night rush and to a lesser extent a
scout rush are going to suffer as well
because of all those things the raiding
potential late in the game I would say
is far below average and I'm going to
say it's a C which could very easily
have been lower if not for the Hazara
next up we'll take a look at the siege
the +3 range on the auditors is pretty
fantastic what's scary is that the
Koreans also get bombard cannons and I
think that really separates them from
the Celts considering the team bonus
open tech tree and unique tech I'm going
to give them an A for siege when I made
the Celt overview I gave them an a
thinking maybe I give the Koreans in a
plus but I think the A+ grade is going
to have to go to the Celts with Koreans
as allies now let's take a look at the
Navy the galley rush definitely isn't a
specialty of the Koreans with no early
economy or ship bones
there's also no demolition ship at all
which is a bit unusual but it's not
really that big of a deal
I like the ship right as well as heated
shot and bracer and I was pleasantly
surprised with how the Turtle ships held
up in the late game water battles
overall I can't really justify anything
higher than a C for the early water game
and a B+ for the late game giving a
b-minus overall the thing about the
turtle ships is they're so slow you
don't really get to decide when to take
the water battles which means it's hard
to really take full advantage of them
I'm just not convinced that Koreans can
compete with other top tier water
civilizations in the late gig looking
quickly at the monks they're not
particularly great especially since
they're missing redemption it's a bit
sad that Koreans also don't get heresy
considering how tanky and expensive
their units are there are a couple of
nice text here so overall I'd give them
a C+ for monks we'll be on two defenses
now this is a nice-looking University
tech tree especially considering that
they gather stone faster their towers
get +2 range by Imperial age they get
free tower upgrades and the Koreans are
full of counter units like Han
cannoneers halberdiers turtle ships war
wagons bombard cannons and long-range
siege on endures I give the Koreans and
a four defences and an A+ in the
expansions because of their faster
construction speed for fortifications
they not only have the turtle ship on
water down but the turtle strategy on
land is
well and if you like to wall up and
build towers with Byzantines you'll
probably like it even more as Koreans
take a look now at the economy like I've
already said there's no stronger the
economy bonus but most of the economy
texts are here I'd give it a b-minus
which might sound high based on what
I've said but one thing that helps them
out it's easy to overlook is that
they're very efficient with population
space relying on expensive units like
war wagons and turtle ships rather than
numbers and that frees up more
population space to economy then I think
other civilizations can get away with so
as a bit of a wrap-up I think of Koreans
as one of the masters of black forests
and other volatile maps and the auditors
and war wagons are a big part of that it
takes them a while to get going but once
you have your army built up it's
incredibly difficult to counter on the
other hand their weakness is ultimately
that they're a booming sort of
civilization as well and the fact that
it takes them a while to get rolling so
you're going to have more trouble
generating early pressure which means
other booming sorts of civilizations
have a chance to do that against you as
well another tough situation is if you
don't have allies to trade with since
Andria's war wagons and turtle ships are
all very gold intensive those are my
thoughts on the Koreans though thanks
for watching guys and I'll see you next
time