Hello ladies and gentlemen Spirit of the Law here.
This video is all about the top five units that in my humble opinion
I rarely see from new players but can be really effective when used in certain situations.
In fact, when I see these units being used at the right times
it's a sign to me that whoever I'm playing against is quite familiar with the tech tree,
and is comfortable stepping outside of the predictable counters,
Which makes them a more dangerous player.
Of course that doesn't mean everyone should use all of these all of the time,
as unit choices are situational depending on the map and the other players army composition and all that stuff
But I think there are a few really good counter units out there that you can reliably expect newer players not to use in situations they really should.
And here they are as a top 5 Countdown
Number five is the Mangonel and Onager line
It's very easy to underestimate how excellent it is encountering archers
Especially at lower levels where the use of micro is Inconsistent.
And in a pinch they can even be good against mass infantry, and other siege.
What's great about them is they become more useful as your opponent's army gets larger.
Which means they get you back into a game that you're starting to fall behind in.
Well, unless you lose them for free in which case you just wasted a ton of resources.
But let's try to think in the positive here and most of the time this doesn't happen.
The big problem you'll run into it first is with moving targets.
To get full use out of them you might want to get a bit of practice with their attack ground feature.
Just hover over it to see which button you have assigned to it.
Though you can also change it to a different key,
if it's something that's more convenient and easier for you to remember.
Using the attack ground feature is easier said than done,
But you want to fire at the ground where the units are going instead of clicking on any unit itself when they're on the move.
They're a great addition to any army and
mass Onagers at Imperial Age is a bit of a favorite strategy of mine,
And is difficult to counter if you protect it with something like Halberdiers or Mangudai.
Number four is the Hand Cannoneer.
Now ranged units are usually pretty good when you have lots of them
But besides the range and a whopping 17 attack the,hand cannon also has +10 damage against infantry
So it's a very powerful unit in the right situation
And you should have a plan to deal with them if you're making infantry yourself.
You can't rely on building them in every case you're against infantry, since 11 civilizations don't have access to them
They're pretty gold intensive and siege also deals with them pretty easily
So don't try them against Celts massing Woad Raiders if they have some Siege Onagers in the back
You feel like it's a good call because they have infantry, but it's a disaster waiting to happen.
Something to keep in mind is even against non infantry
They still have 17 attack, so in a large group
They become effective against small groups of cavalry as well
Needing 18 of them to one shot of Paladin, Hand Cannoneers also work pretty well in
combination with cavalry and can take out any Halberdiers and heavy cavalry while your own cavalry can handle their siege.
A few Onagers mixed in there to take out archers,
And you have yourself a pretty solid combination of units.
Number three is the monk.
Now this one's a bit different because really new players do tend to use these a lot to heal their armies
Which is something that people tend to do less of as they play more.
So here I mean using it as a deterrent against knights
Pikemen can scare Knights away temporarily from a certain area,
but nothing drives them away and puts the fear of God in the heart of the attacking player like Monks.
It's stressful when you hear that conversion sound since you're not only losing a unit but they're also gaining one.
That makes a conversion much worse than just losing a unit outright.
To put it in perspective you work hard to minimize Villager idle time,
and to try to rush opponents to idle their villagers a bit.
But looking at cost each Knight you convert with your monk is roughly the equivalent of removing seven minutes of idle time for you,
AND, idling four of their gold miners and three farmers for one minute,
which would be considered a pretty successful raid.
Keep the monk safe for one minute after conversion and they can do it all over again too, giving you a lot of value.
Having them around also makes you much more likely to grab relics,
which pretty much everyone at any skill level will admit they should be paying more attention to collecting.
Number two is using rams against archers.
Really all the seige units are pretty under-utilized, but I think this one is in particular.
The secret is definitely out that rams are a very threatening unit in Castle Age against towers and castles.
So it's used a lot in that context, but not as much by newer players against archers.
I'm not suggesting you try to attack the archers with the ram directly or
Even that you have to Garrison units inside of the ram.
Just having a few around when your opponent has more than, say, 20 archers has a pretty big impact.
In small groups, you can expect your opponent to probably focus fire your units and avoid hitting the rams altogether.
But past a certain point focus firing wastes too many shots and it's more effective to just let the archers auto attack.
In that situation, rams are ideal because they give the auto attacking archers extra units to fire at,
wasting shots that would normally be used against your more important units.
It's not that the archers will shoot at the rams first every time,
though that can happen to a ram if it's closer than any archers.
But the main thing is that when the archer does target ram he's going to keep firing at it for a long time,
and is removed from the fight temporarily.
This is great in combination with cheap units of your own that the opponent won't focus fire down, like skirmishers or archers of your own.
Before I reveal number one I have to give an honourable mention to villagers.
As a lot of new players, It's true, don't make enough of them.
It's pretty commonly said that the villager population should be close to half your maximum population if you want a really rockin' economy.
As another honourable mention, I want to throw out scorpions.
Now they didn't make the list because they're the least common of the siege units at every level,
so the fact that new players don't use them a lot doesn't mean as much, because most people don't use them a lot .
So it's not really in the spirit of the countdown.
But here it is the moment you've been waiting for the number one unit you should probably be using more is
The Champion.
How fitting that champions take the number one spot given their name?
It's a strong unit in general, but champions are an especially solid choice against trash units.
Meaning of course the Pikemen, Skirmisher, and Light Cavalry lines, which don't cost any gold.
Even if you're not an infantry civilization like the Japanese or the Goths,
They're still completely viable and sorely under-utilized.
It's true that if you're using champions against trash units you're spending gold to fight units that don't cost any,
and there's also four techs to research up to it, along with some Blacksmith upgrades,
so it's understandable why people don't think it's worth the investment.
It definitely is though, if you can scrounge together a bit of gold.
As someone who likes to use trash units a lot in my armies,
I can attest to the fact that there is a definite correlation between an opponent's rating and how often they counter my trash with champions.
Newer players will try to overpower trash units with their unique unit,
or a really expensive combination of Hand Cannoneers and Paladin's, or something like that.
But at that point you're on the gold clock, counting down until you run out.
The Champion isn't a perfect unit, and has its own counters like Arbalests, and Hand Cannoneers, and Cataphracts,
But you're much better off forcing your opponent into gold heavy units than to try to fight his trash forever.
Personally I don't see how all of these guys can be champions in the sense of a definition.
But it's okay apparently there's only supposed to be 12 Paladins in the world - and I make more than that all the time
Except when I'm playing Japanese who only get Cavaliers
But that's a story for another day.
As always take it easy guys, and I'll see you next time.