Blacksmiths

[Nid]

So does having a full blacksmith tree make up for missing levels in the Archery range, barracks and stables?

Like pikes with a full tree versus Halberds without blast furnace and the last armour upgrade?

[Rubijox]

missing techs in either probably means that you either have a civ bonus that replaces it, or that you generally don't want to use those units unless you are in a special situation.

You'd never want to make knights if you are missing bloodlines, unless you are franks... same goes for archers if you are missing thumb ring, etc.

Though, if you are only missing things like the last armour upgrade, making those units in castle age still makes sense, just don't go overboard and try to switch to something else before you reach imperial age.

Missing techs usually means that you civ isn't suited for that task and probably excels elsewhere.

Another mention is vikings pikemen, they are still somewhat decent even though they are missing the halberdier upgrade, because they have extra hp and gain extra bonus damage vs cav from a unique tech.

[Nid]

Cool, that is kinda what i thought. I have no idea what I am doing yet and pretty much just go ball of shooters with halberds and light horse to deal with the counters.

Once I reach the point where I have some spare time I will start looking at actual tactics XD

So far doom ball and trebs is all I can manage

[Doctor Teo]

Yes and no - Civ dependent.

If we're talking a regular civ with no bonuses, it's often a no; Cavaliers with Blast Furnace are a little worse but cheaper to upgrade to than Paladins without Blast Furnace, and ultimately the Paladins will do better. Sometimes it can be justified not to have a final unit upgrade - Franks do not get Hussar or Bloodlines and are stuck at Light Cav, but they're still worth using for the purposes of raiding, and their full blacksmith upgrades means 6 pierce armor, shrugging off unupgraded towers or TCs without Bracer+Chemistry; in the Frank's Light Cav case, having the full blacksmith makes them better raiders than Hussar without full upgrades.

Skirmishers are not worth it without Bracer since they can't reach long-range archers to do their job (but at least almost everyone has Elite Skirm), and Pikes without Halb miss out on a whopping 10 damage against Cav which doesn't compare to the 2 gained from Blast Furnace.

That being said, there are some rare exceptions to this thanks to Civ bonuses.

Malians are a big one - they do not get Paladins or Blast Furnace, but their Farimba unique tech makes all cav do +5, so their Cavaliers are one attack ahead of normal fully upgraded Paladins, 20 health behind, yet much cheaper to get to that point. Similarly, they're stuck at Pikes, but their civ bonus gives their Pikes +3 pierce armor in Imperial (for a total of 7), making them way more resillient against Cavalry Archers than Halbs of another civ - your call whether taking 3 less damage versus archers is worth dealing 12 less damage per hit against Cav (no Blast Furnace, no Halb); really, the idea is to be using Champions, since having your Champs deal 2 less is a great trade to pick up 3 pierce armor for assaulting TCs and castles.

Mongols are another famous exception, as they are missing the final armor upgrade for both Cav and Arch, and considering their heavy reliance on Hussar and Cav Archers, it's a pretty big deal - that last armor upgrade is 2 pierce armor resist, which can be the difference between a TC doing 1-3 damage and 3-5 damage per arrow to a raiding Hussar; if it was the other way around and they had Plate Armor but no Hussar, they'd be way more arrow resistant. That being said, Mongol Hussar famously have a whopping +30% hitpoints, which means taking an entire extra free hit from a halb and 2 from a full Paladin, which Plate armor would not be able to compensate for. Mongols also get the less common Parthian Tactics for their Cav Archers, which is the equivalent of the Blacksmith upgrade anyways -- while it would be ideal to have Plate and Parthian like Indians do, Mongol Cav Archers are still a force of reckoning without it, owing to the tendency of their Hussar to serve as a front and being compensated with the strongest offensive Cav archers in the game.

[Nid]

Light cav are the obvious exception, and I pretty much just look at spears and light cav in all the civs for their utility since I tend to go infantry heavy with some minor mounted raiding and for killing siege and and monks.

I only really noticed because Tatar spears are missing 3 armour levels and they were dying much too easily.


I really never use skirmishers, spears and light horse being my no-gold units.

[Ducks on Fire]

There is a lot of hidden damage in AoE2 that need to be taken into account. Pikes get +22 to cavalry while halbs get +32 for example, so blacksmith upgrades don't make a whole lot of difference in that situation (at least the attack ones don't).

[Nid]

Originally posted by Ducks on Fire:

There is a lot of hidden damage in AoE2 that need to be taken into account. Pikes get +22 to cavalry while halbs get +32 for example, so blacksmith upgrades don't make a whole lot of difference in that situation (at least the attack ones don't).

Ah, cool. I did wonder what the difference was, those numbers are much bigger than I was expecting.

[dianteforlife]

i recomend getting the extended tooltips mod which shows you all the bonus damage and extra stats for every building tech and unit. as a general rule blacksmith is less important then final upgrade unless you are counting bracer in which that is most important

[顯示為離線]

Really depends

[IVOL]

Here you can see the advanced stats of units.
https://aoe2techtree.net/#Aztecs

[Doctor Teo]

Originally posted by dianteforlife:

as a general rule blacksmith is less important then final upgrade unless you are counting bracer in which that is most important

Agreed.

In general, Blacksmith upgrades tend to go Ranged > Armor > Melee.

Ranged ups make ranged units easier to use and leverage their greatest strength, which is distance. Armor helps resist sources of low damage, such as pikes fighting other pikes or light cav when diving under town centers to raid. Melee attack matters a little bit, but there's a lot of bonus damage in this game, and adding raw attack power doesn't affect that at all; units that already hit hard like Knights only see a small damage increase, and for units reliant on bonus damage like Pikes it only matters if they're hitting a target outside of their counters, since their bonus is most of their damage.

Unit upgrades are usually better than a blacksmith upgrade, but cost factors in too. +1/2 armor from Cav Plate Barding and Blast Furnace combined are cheaper than the Paladin upgrade, with one giving extra armor and the other giving 40 health, for instance. But that's also because Paladin is ridiculously expensive!

[顯示為離線]

Originally posted by dianteforlife:

as a general rule blacksmith is less important then final upgrade unless you are counting bracer in which that is most important

Nah, cav armor > hussar = bloodline

[Nid]

Originally posted by IVOL:

Here you can see the advanced stats of units.
https://aoe2techtree.net/#Aztecs

Thank you that is very useful.

[Gorilianul]

Originally posted by Rubijox:

missing techs in either probably means that you either have a civ bonus that replaces it, or that you generally don't want to use those units unless you are in a special situation.

You'd never want to make knights if you are missing bloodlines, unless you are franks... same goes for archers if you are missing thumb ring, etc.

Though, if you are only missing things like the last armour upgrade, making those units in castle age still makes sense, just don't go overboard and try to switch to something else before you reach imperial age.

Missing techs usually means that you civ isn't suited for that task and probably excels elsewhere.

Another mention is vikings pikemen, they are still somewhat decent even though they are missing the halberdier upgrade, because they have extra hp and gain extra bonus damage vs cav from a unique tech.

Viking pikemen are almost regular halbs, maybe even better than most halbs against cav. Probably not better than teutonic halbs. I think teutons > best halbs in game due to bonus armor. In late trash wars they take out any enemy halbs.

If you have no idea what blacksmith upgrades to do, go spanish and go whatever way you want, just get in place two blacksmiths and research two upgrades in the same time. Spanish blacksmith cost no gold.

Here is how I do it, If I play teutons, I do infantry armor upgrades first, then attack. Whatever civ I play, if I play it's native qualities I use the upgrades intended for that unit. If I play Franks I do cav armor upgrade, same for slavs. If I play Malay I go infantry armor upgrades and so on. Also if playing Malay you need to go Forced Levy asap and then u get best trash unit in game, the trash handed swordsmen. Basically is do the castle age upgrade of that unit, go full upgrade to imperial then upgrade it to it's final imperial form if it has one
(Light Cav > All cav upgrades > Hussar
Pikeman > All infantry upgrades >Halb and so on)