hey guys Spirit at the law here in this video we're going to take a look at the Inca's unique
archery range unit the Slinger the Incas are of course a civilization based around finding counter
units and officially this is their answer to enemy infantry to the extent it's commonly described as
the Inca's version of the hand Cannon ear going into this my perception was that the crossbow
as a unit is generally good against infantry and even Cavalry if you get a decent number of them
whereas the Inca's other two archery range units are highly specialized the elite skirmisher being
good against archers and really nothing else while the Slinger is good against infantry and again
nothing else in the process of making this video though I've started to question that description
of the Slinger and especially after the plus one attack they were recently given I think
that characterization might undersell Slingers to some extent in this video we'll explore
those comparisons in Castle and Imperial age and hopefully give a sense of what you can expect from
the Slinger as it stands now we'll start things off in Castle age and clear up the not all always
intuitive set of texts they're upgraded by right away an important distinction with the hand Cannon
ear is that Slingers are affected by all Archer blacksmith tags so Fletching is helpful for attack
and range despite maybe the odd logic there of adding Fletching to a stone they also recently
gained an extra effect for The Unique Tech Andean sling at the castle adding plus one attack on top
of removing the Slinger's minimum range in fact both unique techs apply to Slingers and as we'll
see the Imperial age one can be a pretty big deal in some matchups and another contrast with hand
cannoneers at the University they also benefit from ballistics again sounding more like an Archer
and are even affected by thumb ring though I should note that as of the most recent patch
that only improves them from 90 to 100 accuracy and no longer increases their fire rate so I would
argue it's the last tech here to prioritize but now let's see how they actually compare to say a
standard crossbow with all of these upgrades it turns out the two units are surprisingly
similar in many ways for example they have the same total cost and the same attack once you
get all upgrades they also have the same Base fire rate and Slingers even have a bit more HP and base
accuracy though nothing too significant unlike the crossbow they also don't require a direct upgrade
when you hit Castle age and are immediately ready to make of course on top of this they also have a
bonus against infantry that the crossbow lacks and so far this sounds really good and initially like
they might almost be a straight up better version of the crossbow the problem is most of the things
mentioned so far also come with subtle downsides first their cost is food instead of wood which
is a slower and more difficult resource to collect their 7 attack is also only possible with a unique
Tech at the castle again giving you an upfront cost of both a castle and an extra Tech their
fire rate is also not improved by thumb ring as of last patch meaning again crossbows eventually fire
faster and actually have the edge even pointing out the extra crossbow upgrade simply reflects the
fact that you can start massing archers in feudal age whereas that isn't even an option for slingers
they also have the added disadvantage of a minimum range which is removed by their castle
unique Tech but again adds in that extra step as you dig deeper it becomes more obvious why Inca
players usually default to archers if they're going for a ranged unit and slingers are more
often a situational emergency switch if you're up against a lot of infantry of course that's
the largest distinction with 10 extra bonus damage against infantry and even a surprising plus three
against ramps letting them do three damage per shot instead of the one that you would expect
if you're getting pushed by long swords or even berserks or gbeto which you see a little more of
now these days the Slinger unquestionably gives you an immediate option to help stabilize while
also being fast enough to kite infantry and make their minimum range not usually a problem against
anything except Cavalry outside of fighting infantry though I still think they look remarkably
similar to crossbows though that also brings with it some of these same inherent problems
for example they aren't very good against mangonels or Scorpion's High Pierce armor
and these are unfortunately popular pairings with infantry of course as they are considered
archers they're also countered by skirmishers just as much as crossbows are taking the same
bonus damage even in a castle age head to head with all upgrades faster firing crossbows win
consistently though they do suffer significant losses the new plus one attack from andean sling
definitely makes this matchup better than it was before but even from this it's pretty clear why
crossbows are more popular in early Castle age as a default and I don't expect pure Slinger against
an Archer sieve to really work despite similar looking stats that sounds more like a job for Inca
Eagle Warriors now as for Castle age Knights this is arguably the most significant matchup impacted
by Andean sling now giving plus one attack I think some players would be surprised to learn
that a group of Slingers with their unique Tech do roughly as well against Knights as crossbows
needing the same number of total attacks that said without Andean sling between the
minimum range and lower attack your Slingers are going to be in trouble against Knights so it's a
really important Tech now letting them actually be a bit of a threat to Cavalry in large groups
comparable to crossbows without thumb ring at this point I'm not sure it's fair to say they're
completely destroyed by Cavalry if you have a mass of them and I'm revisiting that opinion a
bit at least in Castle age they're not even that much worse against archers head to head so while
I'd rather Incas other options against crossbows and knights I'm starting to think this Slinger
might be a bit more well-rounded than it was in the past the fact they also throw in a huge bonus
against infantry seems like an increasingly useful feature with the new patches pushing
infantry seemingly a bit more every time and of course they can be paired with other units like
kamayuks or Eagles to cover their major weaknesses the question then is if Castle age is when they
Peak given their lack of an elite upgrade or if they still have some value to offer in the
Imperial age while the lack of an upgrade might seem like a problem at first it's important to
remember here you do have quite a few texts that apply to them from the blacksmith text increasing
attack range and armor fabric Shields increasing armor even further and chemistry so it's not
exactly fair to say you're throwing a castle age unit into an imperial age fight unless you
let that be the case in fact there's six Pierce armor is enough that against an equal number of
our blisters with similar total resources they look very comparable having one less attack and
a slower fire rate but two extra pure summer and can even match the r blaster's range I
wouldn't go as far as saying they counter strong archers but as we can see they can more than hold
their own in a pinch against generic ones again assuming you picked up fabric Shields that's a
really important Point by the way as without that Tech they don't really stand a chance
of course Imperial age is when I think the comparison becomes not just to the r Blaster
but maybe the more important question is how they compare two hand Cannon ears
first off the immediately obvious things are they're significantly cheaper but have much
lower attack meaning things like Knights Elite skirmishers or just anything with high Pierce
armor they can't punch through like hand Cannon ears of course we can't just look at their attack
as working in the Slinger's favor here is it has a much faster reload time and also higher
accuracy of 90 compared to 75 percent keep in mind while those are the technical numbers it
can be sometimes misleading and previously I found a medium range averaging their accuracy on paper
with 100 gives a more realistic sense of what you can expect in fact at medium range their accuracy
and faster attack rate mean against a non-infantry unit with zero Pierce armor the two do roughly the
same damage over time at very close range the hand cannoneers accuracy goes up enough it's probably
better and at their max range there's probably an edge to the Slinger but it would be hard to notice
a real difference and keep in mind Overkill is also working a bit harder against the hand
Cannon ear the problem for the Slinger is that as we add more armor its damage output goes down much
faster for example against a Cavalier with six Pierce armor the Slinger is doing about half the
damage over time as a hand Cannon ear decreasing to about a third of the damage against the Paladin
with seven pierced armor and about a quarter of the damage over time to a skirmisher with eight
Pierce armor this is the inherent problem with Slingers in the late game where having 9 attack
just doesn't cut it against things like heavy Cavalry and especially buildings but what about
against infantry that is its main purpose after all and remember that bonus damage is unaffected
by Pierce armor this may come as a surprise but I would go as far as to argue the humble Slinger
is actually better against infantry in Imperial age than the hand Cannon air and I have numbers
to back that up given their faster attack rate and better accuracy the math suggests we should
actually expect about 30 percent more damage output from a Slinger than a hand Cannon ear
if the target is an infantry unit with no Pierce armor as we add more Pierce armor the difference
decreases but even against these six Pierce armor of a champion with gambesons or the eight Pierce
armor of a Malian Champion once you factor in everything the Slinger is still giving you similar
or perhaps a little more punch while having less damage lost to Overkill again the hand Cannon
ear is probably better up close when accuracy approaches 100 and has much fewer upgrades to
Tech into with basically just chemistry but it's fair to say that against infantry Slingers max
out with similar damage output while being notably cheap individually having one more range tracking
moving targets with Ballistics and having more armor not a bad result for bringing a rock to a
gunfight though that rock does have Fletching just to show all of this number crunching is
reasonable and a quick test here with 10 Slingers against 30 bunched up halberdiers and took the
Slingers 39 seconds to bring them all down which is significantly better than 10 hand cannoneers
50 seconds to do the same thing altogether I don't know about you but Slingers gave me
a few surprises here I previously Typecast them as being exclusively anti-infantry but there's a
good case they hold up well compared to Castle age crossbows as a generalist unit when fully upgraded
especially with a meat shield in front in Imperial age especially where I had lower expectations
they seem to hold up against at least generic R blasters head to head and even more impressively
stand toe-to-toe with hand cannoneers against infantry with several extra advantages they're
a sneaky good unit in my opinion particularly in a meta being actively pushed toward infantry more
and more and are yet another great weapon in the Inca's Arsenal on top of the recently discussed
kamayuk that'll do it for this one though thanks for watching guys I'll see you next time