hey guys spirit of the law here in this video we're going to look into the question of what
happens if we throw game balance out the window in pursuit of historical accuracy rather than
try to make all the civilizations as balanced as possible what if we gave them their historically
accurate inventions for free turks would lose free chemistry vikings free wheelbarrow for example and
this is a big shake-up for a lot of civilizations now of course this isn't going to work for every
tech in the game fletching for example is a staple technology but historically predates the medieval
period by thousands of years the nicknamed iceman found in the alps has been dated back to 3200 bc
and had fletching on some of the arrows in his quiver so obviously not every tech in the game
is a medieval invention or has a clear origin in other cases technologies were lost in europe
after the fall of the western roman empire and then rediscovered which for our purposes here
should still count in fact that idea fits nicely with the so-called dark age having minimal text
available to the player but then later unlocking classical age technologies the overarching goal
here though is just to give preference to the civilization who uses or discovers something first
so they can enjoy early access to attack in the game the same as their real life counterpart
i'll try to keep some organization throughout this so with that let's begin at the archery range
parthian tactics is naturally named after the parthians and their successors the sassanids
who were represented best in age of empires 2 by the persians now while the tech is named after
the parthians we could reasonably also give it to huns turks magyars mongols or koreans but
those feel like civilizations that should have it available rather than getting instant access to it
funny enough persians don't have bracer in age of empires so as a free attack it'd probably be
a little wasted on their cavalry archers without a slight redesign to the civilization overall
thumb ring on the other hand i'd consider more of a generic attack there's evidence they've been
used since the neolithic period so it may be too universal to give to any one civilization for free
the oldest surviving example is from 1200 bc in china though one thing we can be sure of is
tatars were not the ones to invent it now the crossbow has an interesting history it's pretty
clear the chinese used them first though greece invented something similar which the romans would
naturally been familiar with romans also built their own larger versions of crossbows which was
then in turn used by the byzantine empire as well china should probably get the upgrade for free but
if we want to spread things out geographically a bit there's some evidence that the picks made
reference to it relatively early while the french were also early adopters within europe i'll still
give this one to the chinese for beating the others by a thousand to fifteen hundred years
but frank's or maybe celts could also have a small discount moving on to the jenna tour this one is
unquestionably given to the wrong civilization and should go to the spanish it's of course given to
the berbers in-game but actually represents the jinette which was a spanish light horseman and
would skirmish by peppering enemies with darts and other projectiles this one's pretty unambiguous
but now let's switch to the barracks most of the barracks upgrades seem generic enough i'm not
sure i'd want to single out any civilization for inventing any of them supplies tracking
and even squires resist a nice label of who was first likewise pikes were in no way a medieval
invention and the halberd is chiefly credited to the swiss who aren't in the game several of the
other labels also don't make any sense as amended arms is supposed to be mounted on horseback the
longsword is supposed to be two-handed and a lord would only have a small number of champions mostly
for ceremonies tournaments or single combat and certainly not armies of them so the whole militia
line seems a little confused or at least i am when trying to figure out what they're all supposed
to represent that said eagle warriors were a class of soldier in the aztec army specifically
so in our revised balance they should probably get those upgrades for free if anyone's going to
the barracks was admittedly tricky but luckily we have a little more to run with at the stable
first the paladin has a very specific use and was unambiguously french the name refers to some
legendary knights of charlemagne's court so we'll give frank's the free paladin upgrade as broken
as that bonus sounds on paper as for bloodlines and husbandry to me they refer to the same thing
and is just selectively breeding horses which has been done for millennia that said arabian
horses were particularly renowned for their speed endurance and intelligence they were imported into
spain and other parts of europe especially in the high middle ages following the first crusade
they were also popular in eastern europe where they were crossed with local horses to develop
more effective white cavalry in particular the hazardous war horses for example were largely a
mix of local breeds with arabian forces and even today almost every modern riding horse breed has
some arabian bloodline in it for that reason we could give bloodlines and husbandry to saracens
or turks who had historically early access so to speak to what would be a very popular and
versatile breed of horse jumping now to the siege workshop the mangonel which was actually a type
of trebuchet is originally from china though the similar catapult-like onager was developed and
used to great effect by the romans if anything the two units could actually be switched in order as
in medieval europe the onager seems to have come first but either way china again seems
to have beaten europeans to the punch and could justify getting a manganell upgrade for free to
reflect that fact bucking an already noticeable trend though with the counterweight trebuchet
itself we finally have an example of a tech that was invented around the mediterranean
and traveled east to the chinese thanks to the mongols but now let's move on to the navy the
naval techs generally aren't specific inventions where there's a clear source
careening for example refers to laying a ship on its side to clean or repair its hull and drydock
refers to putting ships in narrow basins that can be drained of water which has been done at least
as far back as the phoenicians the fire ships specifically though as it's depicted in game
with a ship spewing greek fire is pretty clearly byzantine or at least they're the ones that made
it famous so they could get those upgrades for free note there's some ambiguity out there and
a fire ship can also refer to an av2 demo ship in which case again china was first of course
both civs already have bonuses for those units in lieu of free tax as for the galleon that was
invented by two captains of the spanish navy so giving spain a free galleon upgrade seems pretty
fitting then again maybe spanish should have to pay to research galleons and prototype to work out
the kinks so then everyone can just copy the idea and get it for free maybe we're thinking about
researching text backwards here but either way spanish deserve credit for inventing the galleon
looking now at the market there's actually a few notable tags cartography and attempts at large
maps of course predate aoe 2's timeline but the thing is naturally most early ones weren't very
accurate or were symbolic reputations one popular style of map in europe was the tno with the
mediterranean drawn as a vague t-shape splitting europe asia and africa with jerusalem in the
center while they may achieve their religious or symbolic goal as a map you navigate with
it's not great and probably wouldn't be a lot of help getting somewhere you were trying to go
the tabula rogeriana made in 1154 by hamam al-adrizi is actually not bad as an amalgamation
of accounts from arab merchants and explorers and is considered the best world map of the time as
well as for the next roughly 300 years it seems safe to say that saracens were a little ahead of
the game thanks to their prime location as a point of contact between east and west what makes this
map particularly notable though is it was created by an arab muslim geographer for the norman king
of sicily doing him the favor of exaggerating the size of sicily quite significantly relative
to italy and spain drawing on knowledge from arabic latin and classical sources it's going
to represent the best of the cooperation between christians and muslims in the 12th century and
fits nicely with cartography and aoe2 as players sharing their knowledge of the map together
aledrizy himself was actually a berber but i think there's a better argument for this tech going to
either saracens or possibly sicilians next up guilds isn't given for free to any particular
civilization and you could reasonably make an argument for britons teutons franks or italians
it seems like germans were the first to make what we'd recognize as guilds so this bonus
could be free for the teutons as they also had a famous confederation of merchant guilds
called the hanseatic league as for coinage it of course predates civilizations in the game and we
could give it to persians chinese or indians with many examples of coins surviving to today
i think we should give it to the byzantines though who had a lot of experience using bribes
and tributes to maintain their empire which was often seen as preferable to a military engagement
so they feel the most fitting to get the tech for free given it's meant for sending tribute
moving on to the blacksmith for the infantry texts iron casting and blast furnace are pretty clearly
chinese inventions the blast furnace allowed for the creation of pig iron and appeared in
china around the turn of the first century a good thousand years before arriving in europe things
are a little different though when it comes to armor scale armor for instance was used by ancient
egyptians but was also widely used in persia and the byzantine empire so a free tech to either one
would feel appropriate this might also just be a case though where it's too generic to give to a
single civilization as it also seems to have been invented independently in china japan and korea
as well as for the next upgrade chainmail this has actually been credited to the celts who we haven't
had a chance to give a free tattoo yet though this is referring to the iron age continental
celts which isn't necessarily the same thing as the so-called celtic nations in age of empires
but i think it's close enough for our purposes here as for plate armor the way it's represented
in age of empires was another european invention it seems or at least a rediscovery after falling
out of use since the classical age it seems though it was more of a gradual shift from male to plate
armor rather than one particular kingdom inventing and completely embracing it first i think this is
another case where we'll just leave it as a generic technology that no one gets for free
jumping now to the university the big one here is of course chemistry
in this case it depends a bit on what exactly we mean by that term if we mean alchemy then there
could be an argument for saracens persians or indians being the most fitting though if we mean
gunpowder and cannons then this is undoubtedly another one for chinese there's a general opinion
that chinese had guns first but after gunpowder spread to europe it seems europeans really ran
with it and unlock their potential if we really do mean the first to have hand cannons as we see
in age of empires though then this one's all china the first proper cannons were also used by china
and considering what the tech chemistry unlocks i think this is pretty obviously theirs there's
sometimes arguments that china invented gunpowder but didn't use it for warfare and the arquebus
is definitely a turk or european invention but the first recognizable thing that we would call
a hand cannon i'm convinced is from china on the other hand the treadmill crane was actually first
used by the romans until disappearing from history it was then the franks that seemed
to have rediscovered and recorded its use next so we'll make this a free tech for them that's
a bigger change than it sounds as at present they don't even have access to it in the first place
as for the monastery of course block printing was famously invented in china where it was used to
print on fabric and later paper though it also seems to have spread quickly to japan and korea
as well it would be hundreds of years before being improved upon in europe with the printing
press but since we're specifically referring to block printing and not the press again we have
to give it to china finishing up with the eco techs this is again all china everything from
wheelbarrow bow saw horse collar and heavy plow are recorded in china hundreds of years before
appearing in europe if you feel the game balance was already tipping too far toward china already
it's really the economy where they turn into an unstoppable powerhouse so to tally up the
changes we have one for persians two for spanish one for aztecs two for franks one for teutons
two for saracens two for byzantines one for celts and twelve for chinese to answer the question of
what would happen if civs got their historically accurate texts for free it turns out china would
be very overpowered one thing i find pretty clever is they actually have a bonus to reflect that in a
general technology discount and having to pay less for every upgrade is a convenient way to
make sure they stay at the forefront of the tech curve that'll do it for this one though special
thanks to seb yang james john paul joxster kyle justin john samantha woodruff and everyone else
on patreon for their amazing support thanks for watching and i'll see you next time