Hussite Wagons (AoE2)
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- čas přidán 9. 09. 2021
- Analysis of the Bohemian's Hussite Wagon, including how it protects units behind it, how it counter it, and its ideal match-ups.
0:31 Stats and cost vs War Wagon
1:10 How its attack works
1:45 Hidden stuff (upgrades, bonuses, speed, creation time)
2:50 Provides cover for units behind it
4:00 Going way too deep about how it really works
6:25 No cover vs siege?
7:30 Counters and ideal match-ups
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Patreon: / spiritofthelaw
Background music from Epidemic Sound: www.epidemicsound.com
Game: Age of Empires II Definitive Edition - Hry
It was made for one reason: to counter cavalry attacks
AoE2: Hussite wagon is countered by the cavalry
At least it beats cavalry archers and does OK against camels even if they lose to Paladins or even Knights.
to be fair, it was made to counter cavalry _when working with flail- and speararmed infantry_
It'd be awesome if we could garrison units inside Hussite Wagons.
Yeah sure!
There have been units inside, who shots the gun. It should be funny if it behaves differently based on the garrisonned unit. infantry becomes ram, archer-line becomes moveable tower, gun powder units becomes hussite.
@@acbariebasuk That would be awesome
Garrison units inside, have the wagons follow eachother. We have turned AoE2 into Train Simulator
I had posted than on forums, specifically garrisioning foot ranged units. The devs had tried it (Bert Beckman said in an interview with OrnLu), but that idea failed. But I was glad that they tried both of my ideas (the other idea was pack and unpack mechanic like Trebuchets, basically making them moving Kreposts but significantly weaker).
I like the fact Hussite Wagons seem to be considered as infantry for the purposes of formation forming. It means they naturally position themselves at the front of formations like you'd want them to.
Smart design.
I really love how historical they went with Bohemians in this DLC. Hussite Wagons being as close to real without some gimmick pack/unpack mechanics, Houfnice, Karlštejn as Bohemian castle, trash monks and monastery techs reflecting that hussite priests were ordinary people (and not some snobby clergy)...
I really hope they do more civ building for immersion/accuracy instead of for meta just like this going forward
The age of Polish SotL content is over. The time of the Bomemian hypewagon has come!
We are missing the train, but I guess we need to deal with that one
2:13 - Onager: *sweating profusely*
"w-wait!"
Poor Onager
Today I learned:
Hussite Wagons have a really slow attack animation that explains why pros think they deal no damage (while actually being much more accurate than I thought).
The Hussite Wagon special effect doesn't apply to siege.
Eagles have a bonus vs siege. oO
We still dont know though if Gussite wagons absorb damage from Steppe Lancers, Fire Ships or Kamayuks hitting targets behind them :(
I mean, the siege weakness makes sense just from a logic standpoint too. The wagon's just meant to be mobile cover, so it's completely reasonable that projectiles meant to take down buildings would be able to breeze through it and do their normal damage to the things behind it.
It's not called "Vozová hradba" ("Wagon castle/fort wall") for a reason
The increased prominence of cannons is also why historically war wagons became less effective. Smaller more mobile cannons introduced during the 16th century could break through war wagons fairly easily.
@@MC-yt1uv Yeah, Wikipedia (I'm lazy) cites a battle were german Landsknechts broke a wagon fort with culverines. I wonder how managable it would have been to basically upgrade a war wagon with steel to be able to withstand some fire from smaller artillery.
@@PrimordialNightmare < yes make the wagon out of steel, and then maybe give them tracks so it moves around easier, and how about giving them a big cannon?
@@MC-yt1uv Yeah but Wagons was primary used in late medieval to stop heavy calvary. Funny fact is that hussites was one of first armies which used cannons and guns efective. Despite they was army of farmers and serfs.
When playing the Jan Zizka campaign, I found myself relying on defensive Box Formation a lot. My armies tend to disappear when I look away from them for more than a minute.
A minute is close to an eternity for AoE2
@@AlphaSquadZero I play on the slowest possible speed...
Jan Žižka himself also did rely on the defensive box formation a lot. The wagon wall was, like, the default Hussite tactic (and with enough ranged units inside, ranging from crossbows through hand cannons to houfnice, it was especially powerful at stumping the mindless charge of Knight line, especially Italian and Teuton crusaders).
Congrats, Zizka would be proud of you emulating him
@@Alche_mist if you are dealing with the anglosphere, it's called a howitzer (houfnice). One of the words that the Hussites gave to the world :)
The knights and they charges were not mindless, but it was medieval WWI. You see a problem, but you don't have a solution either, so you just force square shape into a round hole
I like how Spanish anything seem to be the epitome of "fully upgraded generic anything"
Fully upgraded generic archer
@@jokerpenguin9429 still better than teutons crossbows 11
Hussite Wagons are really just spiritually the closest you'll get without modding to Tanks in AoE2.
I had fun playing a few games against the AI just to spam lines of Hussite Wagons, Hand Cannons, Howitzers, with Cannon Galleons providing off shore bombardment.
There are still many unanswered questions. How do cliffs and elevation influence the damge taken behind them? What about castles both because of the height of the arrows and because they shoot multiple. What about ships fire ships and galleys. What about Cho ko nu. So many questions that need answers.
It's absolutely amazing this 20 year old game has become a live service game. I still have the old version, I don't play much so I haven't got the new one, but I still enjoy your videos.
the definitive edition gave new life to the original aoe even if thts the lest popular
aoe 2 being the pposter child gets most of the love and updates but its still going strong
aoe 3 as always is behind 2 but has had probably as much content condenssed into less civs and like 2 gets updates and patches.
is a good time for all aoe fans
I love how you changed the music when you chose bohemians as no1 wagon civ, it's such a nice touch
I noticed playing them that once you get Siege Engineers, they have the same range as hand cannoneers, meaning the automatic micro they do because of their range doesn't apply to that combo. It was a bit disappointing, honestly.
I know. I honestly sometimes did not research it until after a decisive army fight so that hand cannons benefitted.
Yeah, that made no sense to me.
I hope they fix this.
Maybe give them 5.5 range?
@@darkdill , that could be nice.
I have to say - the Bohemian castle is really well portrayed in the game, clearly inspired by one of our more famous castles - Karlštejn.
That little touch with the 1st place jingle was gold!
"BUT THEY'RE FASTER THAN SIEGE." -Hera
Still lower range than trebs, just use trebs if you can not catch them.
@@Igor369 Trebutchet's projectiles are somewhat slow, though. They could manage a dodge. I think Onagers and Bombard Cannons are the safest bet.
Unless it's Mongol siege.
@@MrDibara Just play Huns or Britons :^)
garrisoned mongols siege rams 11
hussite wagon and monk is quite strong. and in post imp, where gold gets scarce, monks can cost food so its still a powerfull strategy that only gets countered by a large mass of well upgraded light cav
Czech halbs can easily counter cavalry. They seem to have response for every counter.
I haven't played a game of AoE2 in ten years, yet I eagerly await every video you drop. Awesome work love the channel!
One thing that hasn't been very clear to me from this video is how the damage reduction works with bonus damage. Is bonus damage applied before or after the reduction?
before
Ironically, the Hussite wagons are not very historical insofar as they really shouldn't be countered by high-melee units. The thing about Hussite Wagons was that their were basically mobile wooden forts, so knights and infantry basically couldn't harm them. Formed in defensive laager or wagon-fort, knights and infantry piled up against the heavy wagons which were too heavy to be hacked apart or pushed over, unable to surmount their high sides without being stabbed, shot, or clubbed. Meanwhile, the Hussites inside were virtually invulnerable, unless a random arrow caught one as he leaned over the top to attack. This is why Hussites could defeat thousands with just hundreds in several battles. As real cannons and catapults were not particularly mobile weapons suitable for field battles in reality, there was no practical way to break a Hussite wagon fort directly so long as the wagon defenders didn't make some serious error.
Personally, I like the idea of the Hussite Wagons in game having a "battle mode," where the wagons becomes immobile, acquires ungodly amounts of melee and piece armor, and become damage sponges. They would do firearms damage based on range, with melee attackers directly adjacent to the wagon taking 100% damage with 100% accuracy while units up to 6 squares away would take much less as you got further away. The idea would be that the only counter to a wagon would be to snipe it to death slowly with archers out of its range or roll up siege weapons, which would have bonuses specifically against the wagons that negated the high pierce armor, representing that the one thing the wagons weren't made to stop: a massive stone or iron shot from a cannon or catapult.
That sounds, to be frank, kinda terrible to play against. A unit good against melee and range, doing huge damage would be a pretty miserable experience. Especially since even archers would only be doing pinpricks of damage against them. A unit can't be dominant against melee and range, with it's only weakness siege weapons.
@@ikiry0830 Tell that to Christian Crusaders trying to tell Bohemian peasants what they should or shouldn't believe in. :D
I like your reasoning. Maybe OP still. In-game, mine got wasted by chu-ko-nu =/
I too was hoping for a cross between a trebuchet and a tower where the wagons have an unpack mode. Maybe not as insane as what you suggest, but enough to make it more historically accurate.
And here he goes with his boring history lessons
Incredible unit and an even better recap! 👏
The commit you made at the end about box formation is so big brain!
I'm surprised you didn't mention Monk conversions more. From what I've seen, they're basically siege elephants and are also really hard countered by monks with redemption.
That may be so, but Bohemians could use Hussite Reforms and then get Heresy for a Food cost.
I'm totally using box formation in the Bohemian campaign now.
I love how the villagers are melting gold in the outro.
there's an easter egg that if the mining camp is in the most damage bracket of the animation every delivery gives +0.1 gold, so yeah
@@AxDhan realy?
Wow, that Box Formation shot was beautiful!!
I think the Hussite Wagon needs a bit of melee armor, atm it feels very underwhelming to be completely honest.
Great video as always SOTL!!
I like how these things were in part meant to defeat cavalry charges yet they get owned by shock cavalry.
I still miss the intro.
yooooo new outro music is really cool
Been playing them recently, really fun combo!
1:00 hahah the classic song when you reach #1, very noice
"Professional Artistic Render Using Cutting Edge Microsoft Paint Technology"
Sir I don't even play this game and you just earned a like from me hahaha
Just got here from the scholagladiatoria video on flails that mentioned they used them in Hussite Wagons.
I feel like this video missed one important aspect, and thats how castle age units stack up against castle age Hussite Wagons. Imperial Age, most melee units with full upgrades trade in an acceptable manner against Elite Wagons, but Castle Age Wagons are a different story with them trading very well against almost everything.
So the Bohemian's gameplay is best suited for Castle Age. *Got it.* _>writing down for future reference
@@MrDibara more like wagons actually being able to steamroll in castle. in imperial the civ has lots of options too
They are slow to build, expensive, and require a castle. An opponent creating knights out of 2 stables will be able to overwhelm the wagons. Pikemen can be made to counter the knights, but then magonels can hit both the pikes and the wagons.
@@ProperlyBasic11 i mean, if you get to make knights and mangonels before the opponent gets to wagons and pikes you really do deserve to win
@@ProperlyBasic11 So basically, Celts eat Bohemians for breakfest.
Having a squad of Hussite Wagon, Scorpion, Onager, and Archer really confuses the AI as it just doesn’t know what to about it.
Also, imagine taking full damage despite having other units if front you. This message was brought to you by the Hussite Wagon Gang.
Friday, after work, am extremely tired of searching for something good on YT to watch with my pizza.
And then SOTL uploads. What a great beginning for the weekend.
I’ve been waiting for this video. Thanks big guy 😎
I love how when he said i’d give it to he bohemians the number 1 music started. Love that soundtrack
I don't even play AoE that much but I truly love your vids, thank you
I don't know why but the wolf trying to chew on the wagons and just getting shot dead is hilarious at the start xD
Very good analysis!
Interesting.
In a game that came out over 20 years ago, I would not have thought that the projectiles would have a live hitbox in flight.
I would have just thought it to be a check on reaching arrival coordinates.
box-shaped wagon is at its best when used in a box formation...
so BOXS'CEPTION it is!
Never knowing about it before, I love the idea of a Hussite wagon.
These are like medieval tanks. Watched a few games and they seem extremely OP on closed maps
Oh I love this tbh, I love that this is a strategic support unit instead of a "spam this and win" unit. This really changes things up a bit. I wouldn't mind if they take more unique units in this direction in the future.
see how its used in expert Arena teamgames. It's definitely more of a "spam this and win" unit rather than a support one.
I fought against a Bohemian player recently, first time. Didn't know what to do against these massed thick bois.
Was so confused, then I realized too late they were siege, though they were like Korean wagons.
So pike and archery mix with skirms just in case he brings his own archers, needless to say that didn't go too well.
It didn't, actually go well at all.
Aw heck yea I love these! Is there another civ overview in the pipeline?
Pretty curious of the effects of Hussite wagons with organ guns, towers, elevations, castles, chokonu, and navy. Like do multiple arrows hit the Hussite wagon once or all? What about Carval ship with the ability to shoot through units?
I had some of the exact same questions.
in the wiki it says that scorpion and caravel doesnt get affected by this damage reduction and just does their full damage
You can see that in the mangonel test that each projectile does 1 damage, and that probably holds true for all multiprojectile attacks. From the video it seems to go on a per projectile hitting the target basis, so castles extra arrows which have high accuracy will have each arrow do 1 damage to the wagon it passes over, but a tower which will miss some arrows will only do 1 damage per arrow that hits its intended target.
i'm gonna walk down the aisle to that #1 on the list track
Finding all of the subtle jokes in this video is my new favorite pastime.
The real bohemian Siege unit is the Hussite Wagon. Very epic and good.
Based on T90 video, it appears that Hussite wagon is pretty powerful in arena setup and mass wagon can beat higher level players with correct civ matchup in castle age, even with the counter built. I think dev might introduce negative melee armour just like ram to give wagon general weakness against melee units rather than just siege, as mass wagon takes out low number siege handily.
Its always a battle of historical accuracy vs game balance. Historically accurate hand cannons would probably one shot more often (man imagine if all ranged had a critical factor to represent head shots?)
The wagon isn't xbow, it requires more than just a few mangos to win. It's like arb vs mango, you need to have support for them. I personally think that scout knight would have been more effective in that situation.
@@ReeperRiopel Hand cannons shouldn't be more deadly than long bows, though.
The reason gunpowder won out is that anyone can be recruited to wield a rifle within a week, while training a longbowman takes ten years just to build the requisite back muscles to a point where they can physically draw a heavy war bow.
I assuming you're referring to the "Bohemian Nightmare" game? I think that the stats on the unit are fine, but that game showed that their cost (specifically gold) and readiness in the Castle Age is an issue. The best counters to the wagon are upgraded/Imperial units, which takes a lot of research time and resources to get to. Wagons, which are an extremely strong Castle Age unit (which is fine), don't require nearly as much time and resource investment to get an optimal unit. So not only are they extremely strong in Castle Age (especially under certain circumstances), but they require less investment than their counters; which should justify them having a higher cost, at least in the Castle Age, or until their Unique Tech is researched.
0:34 RIP Wolf, the true hero.
That "Top 2 Wagon civs" was hilarious xD
It would be really interesting if walls blocked half the damage like this.
Walls are too OP even without that 11
*trebs go brrr*
sooo implement higher wall hitboxes, increase treb and ram damage against walls specifically. whats the problem?
@@rafad9044 Are walls OP? A single hole (e.g. poked by a few petards in a second,) is all you need to flush in with light cavalry and wreck the economy, unless the defender reacts really fast with quickwalls or has other units or defensive buildings ready. If walls were to become OP, people would start using siege towers, which they don't...
Great overview, but now I'm curious about their "hitbox blocking" mechanic: do they take friendly fire from the mangonel line firing over top of them? Or is it specifically damage from enemy units only?
Edit: Just tested, they don't seem to take friendly fire from projectiles passing overhead.
0:39 RIP Wolf.
"God bless Henry!" ~Kingdom Come Deliverance.
I feel like that unboxing was solid…
practical box formation POG
As I said last video, I like the change of combat. Obuchs taking off armor, the wagons giving cover. We already had siege cutting trees. Maybe monks could give some buffs and nerfs too.
i like the AoE4 idea of a group of monks being able to mass convert a small area, but it does look pretty overpowered lol
Hey Spirit,
I'm fairly confident arrows (all projectiles infact) travel in straight lines in aoe2. The collision is primarily determined with 2D hitboxes, (one centred on the projectiles shadow) and the other on the unit.
Note that shadows of projectiles always travel in a straight line towards to the target. The height of the projectile is merely a sprite offset trick that follows a parabola between the known point A (firing unit) and point B (target (+targets velocity if ballistics is researched). Arrows destroy themselves when the parabola hits a negative number (i.e. they've hit the ground) and then it checks the shadows position and the units position if a hit has occurred.
If the shadow of the projectile passes through a cliff object, (or in this case a Hussite wagon hit box).. it knows to reduce its damage by half.
Huszar Magyar: this is my moment to shine 😎
I think the reason siege does full damage is to show how projectiles from bows and hand cannons get stuck or deflect off the armour, while the more powerful siege just blasts through.
Incredible thanks to you Spirit for all the content you make over the years. It's truly incredibly interesting and fun the way you present your information and perform the tests. Love it.
AoE2 deserves a huge thanks to you for keeping this game so interesting all this time.
I just checked about the Hussite Wagons. Turns out there are men garrisoning inside it, a lot. It is supposed to be an anti-cavalry device and the projectiles are a mixture of handgunners and crossbows. Therefore, it should have projectiles as much as a Chu Ko Nu.
Some Hussite Wagons+Houfnice+Halbedier+Hand Cannon+Monks inside a square formation is really formidable. The Wagons tank everything up, against cavalry attack you have the +20% on Halbediers, against onagers or rams you have the houfnice which has pretty nice range. if you make this formation out of +-50 pop it's basically a walking castle :D but it's important to have them in defensive stance, otherwise they just break the formation
“Siege counters the wagons”
I don’t know how a siege unit will counter a wagon if it gets destroyed in one hit by a few bohemian bombard cannons(they are called honufices or something)
Yep especially on arena where you can’t easily get light cav or anything to sweep in and take out the bbc
I think they are greatly designed and actually add an interesting mechanic to the game. Their attack animation can be a bit wonky sometimes though :D
I wonder how mandatory is the Elite upgrade for a purely support/wall role.
Fascinating
Box information looks hilarious but its effective while moving
Seems like an incredible counter to the Briton longbow/trib scrub strat
Have you considered making historical-narrative based videos with AOE2 scenario editor?
There are several channels that do short military history type videos, but the animations tend to be very rudimentary (boxes representing units moving, flanking etc.) I think you'd have a considerable advantage given your audience and the existing history groundwork in AOE itself
Somewhat unrelated, I somehow find your content similar to another popular youtuber Lemmino - maybe because I learn a bunch of interesting things from each. His channel is also a good template for narrative-based content
One word , OP
0:35 poor wolf never knew what was coming
I kept wondering how would they fare against water units. Does the covering effect cover units against Dragon Ships and Galleys?
it'd function the same as it does against ground siege units. As the ships are siege units too.
@@FirestormX9 What? Siege units that benefit from blacksmith upgrades? Well, depends on the ship. But both ships mentioned are the ones that benefit from blacksmith upgrades. Also, I've played Mongols a lot and don't remember noticing Mangudai taking down ships extra fast.
@@curlywhites the univ upgrade for siege units is just named like that. +20% damage to buildings and the range increase on ships would just make the ships super OP especially considering cannon galleons. For the ships mentioned, the galleys essentially become scorpions as they share the same projectile once upgraded. So the function would be the same. All civs have some form of siege engineers though. The ships aren't archers, I mean, that part is pretty much straightforward. They should have a seperate upgrade icon for ships only but for some reason they didn't do that and just clubbed it into the archer upgrades. There are blacksmith upgrades which benefit towers too but towers aren't archers, those are defensive buildings, right? The upgrades aren't exactly the sole determining factor for the unit type. But the wagon defense stat vs towers would be there but basically useless because of the hitbox. To gain the wagon protection they'd need to be super close to the towers but in doing so they'd become more vulnerable anyway so it becomes redundant.
@@FirestormX9 okay, so show me where ships are siege.
@@curlywhites why?
Now I want to see how well it deals with fireships.
Tfw you were really excited to see an in depth SotL explanation of how the damage reduction mechanic works with scorpions...
And the answer is “It does nothing against siege, it’s basically the same as normal lol”
I just love that you barely need upgrades for the wagons, it makes them easy to blend in with the rest of your army.
That wolf death at start😂😂
they should give the projectile blocking ability to rams and give units an ability to ignore certain units like rams that way one ram doesn't force you to micro manage your archers, but the ram strat still works
you should work with the devs as a tester great work!
Onagers against hussite wagons is going to be very tricky when the bohemian monks come along. Even with all its bonus damage the mangonel needs 3 shots to finish a hussite wagon. I wonder how well light cav spam is equipped to deal with a full blown monk wagon push.
A more accurate description would be that units with blast damage ignore Hussite wagon's effect. Mangonel, bombard cannon and scorpion all deal some sort of blast damage and hence do full damage to unit behind the wagon. Trebs on the other hand do get weaker when hitting units behind. This can help in treb wars. The treb behind the wagon only takes 25 damage from enemy trebs. This also applies when trebs are targeting 1x1 buildings. A wagon in front of them effectively doubles their hitpoints. Unfortunately warwolf trebs do full damage to bohemian trebs behind wagons as they have blast damage.
So I just thought of a tactic and I'm sure other people have thought of it before but still. A bohemians and Chinese team with a hussite wagon square around a mass of chi ko nus would probably be a mess to deal with unless you have decent pierce armor or good siege
I recommend everyone learning about the Hussite Wars. It’s really interesting. Jan Zizka is a bad ass and he revolutionized warfare back then.
Yes, Hussite wars are really interesting topic, they have many people, who had many ideas like Jan Želivský, Jakoubek ze Stříbra or Prokop Holý
It would be nice if walls got a similar mechanic to the hussite wagon, since, y’know, they are also made to protect the units behind them (on a logical, if not in-game, level at least)
that would be ok for a civilization bonus
So now for the follow-up question: since the hussite and Korean War wagons seem to have complementary strengths and weaknesses, would an allied force compromised of them be effective?
That wolf at the start was shooting for the stars
Garrisoned hand cannoneer increased attack speed.
That would be awesome.
I think it doesn't reduce damage of mangonels or bbc, because it's basically melee damage, but scorps is a weird one. Maybe because it's projectile flies under it's hitbox?
The box formation:- Yes, it's my time to shine
That box formation is aesthetic as fuck
The good ol' Hussy Wagon :P
They also FULLY block arrows from forum and castle, acting like a shield if placed correctly
In Age IV they should make a unique battle formation for each of the Civs. If the bohemians get in, they can get box formation. 😁