AOE-II Condottiero are actually garbage

[TruePizza]

The other day I was spamming Huskarals , pikes and champs 1v3 in a 4V4 Lombardia. Typical team game when I saw my enemies were making hand cannons. Noticing I have an Italian ally I was like hey lets add Condos which will get rid of hand cannons and somehow i was getting pushed. Well it was bound to happen right? Its 1vs3 the 3 will eventually start winning. Then I remebered I am GOTHS and I went super spammy with huskarals and pikes and somehow I pushed back.

Here is the thing the condos have enough defense and hp to tank 2 more hits from a hancannons than a huskaral. But litreally dies to anything that is not handcannons. The enemy team was making hussars , skirms , chu ko nu ,unupgraded longswords and hancannons. The huskaral has very high pierc armor so its immune to arrows and tanks 10 damage from hancannons while also have decent damage to deal with long swords and hussar. Condos have low attack making them bad against meele units and 0 natural pierce armor so archers and skirms are going to be better at deal with them. The bonus damage against gunpowder units is so pointless because every other infantry has higher damage output and can kill the cannons within 2-3 hits same as condos depending on upgrades. Hussars and Skirms cost less total amount of resources need and cost no gold which also counters most gunpowder units.

There are like 6 gunpowder units of which the orange gun is never seen at all , conqs sit on horses and can run away , the bombard ships are in water , bombard cannons die if any meele unit gets near them and we have hand cannons and jannisary. If an enemy makes 30 hand cannons you have probably make 25 since the cannons can kill many off before reaching them but now your stuck with 25 units that cant do well against any other units. I understand civs like Malians can give extra pierce armor to condos but with that low attack why not make champions. Champions cost less food(post supplies) and gold , has higher armor , higher attack, has bonus damage against buildings and bonus damage against units like eagle warrior. Condos can maybe run around enemy TCs sniping few vils but champions can finish the TC off and then kill some.

 

[HongeyKong]

Condos are for early imp generally, no?

 

[i_no_english]

Yes, they have decent stats for an unupgraded unit. Don't require elite or heavy upgrade to be strong. I think they also create quite fast.They can be used for example in early imp where enemy went for skirm/mangonels vs your archers in castle age. You can flood condo's before the enemy has time to tech into something decent that can counter them. But it's very situational and not often used I think.

 

[DracKeN]

Condos are great units in a specific situations. If youre expecting a unit that doesnt require any upgrades to be produced with decent stats to perform better than champions/husks against a mix of multiple units, theres something wrong with your expectation. They are mainly anti gunpowder unit/anti skirms+spears unit, yet they still perform better against archers than champions (lower pierce and attack, but higher HP and way faster). Goth husks are on a completely different level, its one of the best units in the game (and one of the very few units goth can use) + its a castle unit, so any comparison here doesnt make sense.

 

[ZeroEmpires]

AoE2 | Condottiero In Depth

This video will give you some insight into the Condottiero, a unit which we've been seeing a lot of in recent HD tournaments. Catch my next video 1 hour befo...

youtu.be

 

[TruePizza]

Yes, they have decent stats for an unupgraded unit. Don't require elite or heavy upgrade to be strong. I think they also create quite fast.They can be used for example in early imp where enemy went for skirm/mangonels vs your archers in castle age. You can flood condo's before the enemy has time to tech into something decent that can counter them. But it's very situational and not often used I think.

Can see this working in theory but just to start with early imp people don't have a lot gunpowder units so your not really using the anti-gunpowder element unless your enemy is turks with only pure jannisaries. You still need your infantry upgrades from the start if your not an infantry civ. If you are an infantry civ with enough economy behind you to mass produce why not go for the better units. Infantry units that you probably have massed from castle age during the time you were researching imp.

 

[TruePizza]

AoE2 | Condottiero In Depth

This video will give you some insight into the Condottiero, a unit which we've been seeing a lot of in recent HD tournaments. Catch my next video 1 hour befo...

youtu.be

This is outdated +1 attack not the biggest deal(still matter when in huge numbers) but that +1 pierce armor could let it tank a lot more skirm fire and help more with raiding against TC and castle fire. Still didn't know they ignored the bonus damage from jaguar and catapracts which was really interesting but too bad they both nearly never gets used.

 

[i_no_english]

Just forget about the gunpower bonus. Their strength lies not in being a hard counter to gunpowder units but in their ability to be spammed in early imperial age. There is usually only a very limited time window in which they can be usefull.

Just look at them as a weaker version of an elite woad rider that can be trained for the barracks. With their fast creation time and speed they are great to swarm your enemy with before he has time to switch into a decent counterunit. Their upgrades are cheap and easy to get (blacksmith upgrades + squires), they don't require Elite or an UT to be strong.

Like I said, it's very situational. it might work in a situation where there was a lot of skirm/xbow/mangonel fighting in castle age, not many military units left on the map and the map is very open. Might also work in a situation where two opposite castles are facing each other and you predict your opponent will most likely invest more into siege (trebs, bbc) than into other military. Probably won't work in a situation where your enemy has a large amount of xbow saved up from castle age and are soon to be arbalest, while his map is mostly walled. Probably also won't work when your opponent went for knights in castle age, has a decent amount of numbers saved up and soon will upgrade them to cavalier, even though his map is quite raidable.

 

[TriRem]

Still didn't know they ignored the bonus damage from jaguar and catapracts which was really interesting but too bad they both nearly never gets used.

They no longer do that. They exclusively ignore bonus from HC now.

 

[TruePizza]

Just forget about the gunpower bonus. Their strength lies not in being a hard counter to gunpowder units but in their ability to be spammed in early imperial age. There is usually only a very limited time window in which they can be usefull.

Just look at them as a weaker version of an elite woad rider that can be trained for the barracks. With their fast creation time and speed they are great to swarm your enemy with before he has time to switch into a decent counterunit. Their upgrades are cheap and easy to get (blacksmith upgrades + squires), they don't require Elite or an UT to be strong.

Like I said, it's very situational. it might work in a situation where there was a lot of skirm/xbow/mangonel fighting in castle age, not many military units left on the map and the map is very open. Might also work in a situation where two opposite castles are facing each other and you predict your opponent will most likely invest more into siege (trebs, bbc) than into other military. Probably won't work in a situation where your enemy has a large amount of xbow saved up from castle age and are soon to be arbalest, while his map is mostly walled. Probably also won't work when your opponent went for knights in castle age, has a decent amount of numbers saved up and soon will upgrade them to cavalier, even though his map is quite raidable.

That's the point its unit that okay in a very unlikely to ever happen situation. Is there any recent examples were players in tournaments used condos intentionally in an evenly matched game?

 

[TruePizza]

They no longer do that. They exclusively ignore bonus from HC now.

Welp that just makes the video extremely pointless for DE. Was really imagining using them against mass catatpracts and confuse the hell out of the byzantine player after going through all the cost to get catas.

 

[The Bloodless]

They are op on islands and Mediterranean. Aside from that they kinda suck though yeah.

Malians in a team game can 3tc boom to condo push on some maps, as could goths (no Castle needed so faster and deadlier). Especially versus Castle age conq or janissary spam. That's about it.