Hey guys, Spirit of the Law here. It's no secret the vikings are great on water, but the question
is often floated, which do you pick: the longboat or war galley? Do you stay tide to the galley line
that you may have mast in feudal, or rock the boat by going with your unique unit? As you'd
probably expect, it's not quite as simple as one or the other so for this video we'll look into
water the factors to consider so you can be shore to better navigate the decision in your next game.
Let's dive in. We'll start off in castle age as that's when the longboat is unlocked,
comparing their stats at a glance to the war galley the two are almost
indistinguishable with the same attack armor and range in fact the only obvious difference is 5 hp.
Keep in mind the vikings have a 15% discount on warships and castle age but their longboat is 10
more wood and 65 more gold for what looks like an identical or slightly worse unit. the longboat of
course fires multiple arrows, though notably not all of those arrows are equal. One of the four is
the main arrow carrying the longboat's displayed attack as well as +9 hidden damage against ships,
while the other three do just one damage to any target, even after blacksmith and other upgrades.
Those three extra arrows aren't even guaranteed to land either, and watching
for any amount of time you'll notice they miss fairly often even at relatively close range.
Another significant difference compared to the galley line is in their creation time.
Longboats are created in 25 seconds as opposed to 36, making this one of only a few cases where it's
actually easier to mask a unique unit than its generic counterpart. The longboat is also about
8% faster, which makes it better at both hit and run as well as being able to avoid any fights you
don't want to take. a notable exception to that is demo ships which do slightly outpace them.
and finally an even more subtle hidden difference is that the longboat is treated by the game
as being smaller than the war galley, so they pack much tighter together. Generally that's
an advantage on large scales as they can enter a fight more cleanly and not bump into each other
or get trapped behind their own line quite as often. Getting as many units involved and firing
as early as possible can actually be quite a large advantage and help snowball a fight. But now let's
put it together and see how the longboat and war galley compare against a variety of ship types
they might encounter, and when each of the two is giving better value. Now i am going to rely a lot
on tests using basic patrolling and admittedly that undersells how much smoother the longboat
is to control. they're basically the kipchaks of the sea - easy to hit and run at the edge of
your enemy's range, they pack together nicely so you can get a lot of them firing at once, they're
smaller so you can more easily dodge incoming shots even with ballistics by changing directions,
and their wider spread of arrows can even help bring down multiple enemy ships at once. These
are all important factors to consider on top of how they perform with patrol. To start off against
generic war galleys head to head they're basically evenly matched. To go a bit deeper, at medium
range i found over two minutes there was only a modest 7% higher damage output by the longboat
as most of the damage is coming from the main arrow and its +9 bonus against ships. Remember,
the longboat also has 5 less hp and the multiple arrows even slightly decrease their attack rate.
Altogether, though, with equal numbers it's basically a wash and they'll trade 1 for 1,
even accounting for the longboat'S slightly higher cost. 15 vs 16, they're basically an
even match against generic war galleys before micro. The longboat isn't floundering here
but the extra arrows really don't seem to be adding very much, either. Don't forget, though,
vikings don't have generic war galleys. they get them 15% cheaper in castle age. accounting
for that and assuming it allows you to create proportionally more units, it's an easy stomp
for discounted viking war galleys. It should go without saying that viking war galleys likewise
performed very well against viking longboats head to head when cost is factored in. As a side note,
because of their longer creation time you would need more docks to sustain more galleys than
longboats given the same economy. Now with micro on the open water i actually think
many players could win with the longboats in that situation depending on how much space you had
and time you're willing to focus on doing that. So far the cheaper galley line feels like the easier
path to victory but what about against fire ships intuitively the longboat's extra arrows should
perform well against a high pure armored targets. It turns out they do between 0 and 60% more damage
depending on how many arrows land, which in turn depends on distance. They're definitely better,
but maybe not as overpowering as you'd expect seeing all of their extra arrows. Of course,
neither unit is cost efficient against fire ships without micro, but that might be missing the point
and expecting too much. Against a modest number of fire ships there's a very obvious difference
and you need significantly fewer longboats to reach the critical mass where you can one
shot enemy fire ships. Longboats have a notable edge here over the galley line, and that's even
before using your extra mobility. To complete the water trident now, what about the demolition ship?
Longboats initially look good taking them out one shot sooner but i think that's a bit misleading.
In this case their better stacking works against them and more expensive tightly packed units
is exactly what demo ships are looking for. A big demo shot is much more costly to a group
of longboats than war galleys, as more units are hit they have less HP and they also cost
more per unit. That's unfortunate, as longboats are otherwise quite good at taking out docks.
The extra arrows do some serious work here, though of course you need to keep a sharp lookout
for enemy demo ships. Both units also share the same +9 bonus damage against fishing ships but
longboats take them out one shot sooner, making them again more potent at raiding, especially when
you think about how quickly they can escape, as well. Another unit that came to mind is the ram,
which is sometimes used to draw ship fire in shallows. In that case longboats are better,
but maybe not by as much as you'd think. Both units have +4 attack against rams and longboats
only end up doing about 50% more damage overall. It's something, but it's not the 4x damage that
you might have expected at first glance. So overall in castle age, it's a bit of a difficult
choice. The longboat has almost everything in its favor from faster creation time, more damage
output against fire ships and buildings, faster movement, and better stacking, but at the end
of the day you're paying significantly more for that. It's definitely worth it against fire ships
and docks but against enemy war galleys it might just be easier to win through cost efficiency.
The exception would be if for some reason you needed to build up your numbers quickly,
in which case the quick creation time makes it easier to flood the map with waves of long boats.
But now let's drift our attention to the imperial age and what if anything changes
when both units are fully upgraded. In both cases, the galleon and elite longboat upgrades add 30 hp,
1 attack, 2 armor, and one range. Below the surface it also adds a hidden +2 damage against
ships and 1 more against buildings, as well. Their stats remain basically identical still with only
a 5 HP difference, though of course the longboat retains its faster movement creation time, etc.
Both upgrades take about a minute to research at the dock, though curiously you pay much more
for the longboats. It's almost double the food and nearly 500 gold instead of around 300 wood.
That's a lot of resources to sink into upgrades if you wanted to get both in early imperial.
Keep in mind the Viking's discount increases and imperial age from 15% to 20% for both units. That
may seem like a growing advantage, but in reality civilizations that get shipwright can essentially
buy the Viking's wood discount, while also lowering the galleon creation time to basically
the same as a longboat. Against a civilization with shipwright some of the Viking's advantages in
imperial age don't seem like they're increasing, but in fact feel somewhat watered down. Looking at
fully upgraded galleons in imperial age, 1-on-1, the longboat still holds a narrow edge. It's a
fragile enough advantage, though, that with a civ bonus like Saracen's faster firing or Portuguese
with additional hp and armor, it's enough to turn the tide of battle with equal numbers.
Without shipwright a viking longboat and generic galleon have the same total resource cost and the
longboat's ability to begin a fight more smoothly gives them a bit of an advantage. On a large scale
it's enough of an edge that with nothing but attack move long boats can win consistently.
Against a civilization with shipwright, though, longboats lose with equal total resources.
Again, in practice, this is going to depend on the skill of the players involved,
and if I take control and add a bit of patrol, attack move, and extra movement, i can win the
fight with about half the longships left. It's not that they're a terrible choice against galleons,
especially if you exploit their hidden strengths, and it's actually kind of fun to do. The easier
fight, though, is to fall back on Viking's discounted galleons, which win convincingly
against enemies without shipwright, and still save 6 gold per unit compared to enemies that have it.
It just comes down to how hard you want to work for the victory. Based on everything I've seen,
it feels again in imperial age that fighting the enemy's galleon line with your own as Vikings is
the safest play. Of course, in that example your opponent may respond with fire ships.
The situation in imperial is identical to castle where longboats do up to 60%
more damage, especially at close range, when most of the extra arrows are landing. That can add up
quickly. I wouldn't go overboard and say longboats are a hard counter to fire ships in low numbers,
but with a critical mass of 20 or more in the open water fire ships don't seem that scary. The real
fear in imperial age for longboats is the heavy demo ship. They have an even larger explosive
radius, and with elite longboats packing so tightly together that's something to be especially
mindful of. Again, similar to castle age they do 50% more damage against docks. Destroying docks,
in particular, can be an effective way to capitalize on water control and prevent someone
from getting back into the game. So that covers the most common situations you'll run into, but
just for completeness sake, we'll look at a few more odd cases. It should go without saying that
against cannon galleons head to head you'll do more than fine with either longboats or galleons.
Cannons are primarily for short bombardment, and definitely not naval combat. Against turtle ships,
of course, normally you would kite them with your extra range, and longboats in
fact need to do that with balanced resources in order to win. Discounted viking galleons,
on the other hand, can actually take that fight head to head with equal resources.
As for the caravel, it's roughly the same cost as a longboat in imperial at 10 more wood and 6 less
gold. This match up depends on how many ships the caravel are able to skewer, as 1-on-1 the longboat
is stronger, and wins with around a third of its hp left. Again, the tightly packed units might be
working against the longboat here ,and staggered formation would probably help avoid some of the
caravel's pass-through damage. So just to wrap up and summarize, the longboat is more expensive
and takes significantly more attention to be cost-effective against the war galley and galleon.
If those are the primary units you're encountering the easiest approach is to mirror that choice,
backed by your discount and strong Viking economy. Against fire ships, though, longboats
are the clear choice. The longboat offers lots of advantages like faster movement and creation,
it's better at stacking, and performs much better against high pierced armor targets,
but just be prepared to sink quite a bit more gold and attention into them.
But that's all for this one. Thanks for watching guys, and I'll sea you next time