Table of contents
- Koreans in Age of Empires II have transformed from a tower-focused civ to an archer powerhouse, reflecting their real-world Olympic archery dominance.
- Korean civs save resources and get free upgrades, making them eco-friendly and powerful in both land and naval battles.
- Turtle ships are pricey but dominate the seas with their high attack and durability.
Koreans in Age of Empires II have transformed from a tower-focused civ to an archer powerhouse, reflecting their real-world Olympic archery dominance.
Hey guys, Spirit of the Law here. In this overview, we're going to be taking a look at the Koreans. Koreans are the OG Tower rushing civilization, and last time I looked at them in HD, they had a real Tower and onager focus. However, more recently, they have had a bit of a makeover into primarily an Archer Civ. This is definitely more reflective of reality if the Olympic archery medal results are anything to go by, with Korea winning all five possible medal results this year and nearly as many total archery medals as the rest of the world combined.
What makes their Archer Focus so interesting in A2 is that they're also very anti-Archer at the same time, with their best matchups including Ethiopians, Britons, Japanese, and Chinese. While overall they land below average on Arabia in the stats, as you get into especially maps with Nomad starts or hybrid maps with land and water, they can start to do quite well. All of this will make sense as we look at their bonuses and Tech Tree, so let's check them out.
To start with their team bonus, Koreans and their allies have their mangonel's minimum range reduced from three tiles to just one. A situation where this can come in handy is against enemy crossbows, which can otherwise try to exploit that minimum range by getting up close. On the flip side, this can actually be a negative bonus in other situations, for example, with a halb onager combo where the halbs can more easily find themselves in the line of fire. Korean halbs are discounted, so maybe don't worry about it, but either way, it's not the most impactful team bonus, especially compared to the plus one range that Korean mangonels used to have.
Moving on to their proper bonuses, the first is that villager line of sight is increased from four to seven tiles, giving them not just more line of sight than Dark Age Scouts but even Feudal Age ones as well. This is an incredible bonus on Nomad, especially as it lets you more easily spot sheep, prime TC locations, or an opponent's starting position. It can also come in handy on more standard maps as well. When Tower rushing, for instance, you'll benefit from getting a better idea about what your opponent is doing and can possibly avoid walking your villagers into enemy units or even spot a raid a few moments earlier.
Their next bonus is a 20% boost to their Stone Miner work speed. With near-perfect camp placement, that's an extra 4ish stone per minute per villager. The most direct use case is, of course, when Tower rushing for obvious reasons, though that strategy isn't as common as it was at one point. An interesting side question is whether the fast rate means that mining stone to sell at the market is technically a faster way to generate gold than mining it directly. It turns out the answer is yes, but at starting market rates to sell gold, that's only true for the first 200 or 300 stone you sell. Practically speaking, though, outside of exploiting market prices a tiny bit, the largest impact is just that you'll naturally stockpile the stone for your first castle a little faster than expected.
Their next bonus doubles down on the tower identity while also pushing their new Archer identity, giving Koreans the Archer armor and tower upgrades for free. To start with archers, in Feudal Age, armor is often a tech players skip until at least after they clicked up, as the 100 food makes your Castle time a bit slow, which in turn delays crossbows and Bodkin Arrow. This means there's a window where Koreans often have armor and their opponents' archers and skirmishers do not. Though how much this matters depends on the exact matchup we're talking about. In straight Archer battles between Koreans and others in Feudal, the upgrade increases the number of Fletching shots taken from 6 to 8, winning otherwise equal fights. On the flip side, against enemy skirmishers, archers only go from five to just six shots taken, so a slightly smaller impact.
Where it really skews things is for Korean skirmishers, who go from taking two to just one damage from enemy archers. While there ends up being no effect in skirmisher versus skirmisher battles, the big takeaway is it makes your defensive skirmisher play against enemy archers much more effective, especially in early Feudal Age. That best matchup list for Koreans starts to make a lot of sense. In early Castle Age, a lot of the same ideas apply, where many won't have +2/+2 armor immediately, sometimes not even the first armor upgrade as other techs take priority. The greatest impact is again for elite skirmishers against enemy crossbows, where those free upgrades can swing from taking just 12 shots to 35 with your armored techs. Even crossbows head-to-head go from five to seven shots taken, again helping in basically any situation you're using the archery range.
Korean civs save resources and get free upgrades, making them eco-friendly and powerful in both land and naval battles.
You then have a third power spike in Imperial Age as well, though keep in mind eventually most Archer civs will get those upgrades, at which point Korean unit stats end up being pretty generic. Still, you save 500 food and 400 gold along the way, so there is an eco benefit to all of this as well. The other half of the bonus is the free tower upgrades, meaning free guard Tower in Castle and keep in Imperial with the bombard Tower unlocked for free as well once you pick up chemistry. Aside from just saving 1,400 food and 1,000 wood, the main benefit here is for the guard Tower, which deals three damage instead of one against mangonels with bodkin arrow. This means that mangonels aren't able to clean up your aggressive or defensive watchtowers quite as easily, allowing you to possibly get a bit more benefit out of your early towers for longer into the game.
Their next bonus is a new one, doing most of the heavy lifting, making Koreans a lot more competitive. Their archers and infantry cost half the usual wood. The archery range is the big one, producing archers by 12 wood each, skirmishers by 17, Cavalry archers by 20, and the spear line by 12 wood as well. Basically, your archery range units aren't just set up to have more armor than opponents early in each age, but even if your opponent catches up in tech, paying that investment out of pocket, you'll probably still trade cost-efficiently. Combined, these bonuses give them solid archers and skirmishers at really any point in the game and even make their Cavalry archers intriguing, albeit they're missing Bloodlines. This also further encourages the Halberdier as a complement to your siege or late-game ranged units.
Finally, if those weren't enough wood savings yet, Koreans then have a 20% discount on all of their warships, making them solid on water and hybrid maps automatically. The only things to note are that it doesn't impact fishing and transport ships, and also that Koreans don't have the demo line, but it's still a solid naval bonus. You also have Shipwright on top of this, giving another 0.8-time multiplier to ship wood cost, meaning your warships end up a combined 36% cheaper than baseline. So that's the Korean bonuses, giving us their Tower, Archer, and Naval focus with a slight hint at Siege as well. Don't let the discounts fool you; Koreans, at least in the late game, are a quality-over-quantity, high-pop efficiency civilization thanks largely to a couple of unique units, which we'll take a look at now starting with the War Wagon.
As usual, I recently did a standalone deep dive of the unit, but for brief overview purposes, I like to think of it as one part Cavalry Archer, taking the same source of bonus damage and costing the same two resources, but with elements of the Elephant Archer mixed in as well, with slower speed and a higher cost. While many units in the game have bonuses impacting War Wagons, their very tanky stats, decent attack, and bonus against buildings make a mass of them surprisingly difficult to deal with once they're upgraded to that point. They're also a pretty natural unit for Koreans to switch to, given all of your prior archer upgrades apply, including free armor. So going from a crossbow mid-game into War Wagons isn't a full tech switch from scratch. Generally, they perform well against enemy archers thanks to high Pierce armor, Cavalry archers, and infantry if properly protected in front, say with your own discounted Halberdiers. Mangonels are also less of a threat than for most Cavalry archers thanks to their relatively high attack and tankiness, able to nearly trade one for one while costing significantly less. Things to watch out for include skirmishers in a large mass, Knights, camels, and monks. Especially the spear line can also tear through them pretty quickly if given a chance to close the distance.
The War Wagon ends up being just one of several ranged unit options that you have to combine with Halberdiers or Hussars in front, with your good siege in the back, giving their most value against enemy Archer civilizations while adding a lot of pop efficiency, albeit for a relatively high cost. Their other unique unit is the Turtle Ship, which follows a very similar theme except on water. Korean navies are, of course, discounted, so you can freely just stick with a standard galleon or fireship composition but then have the option to also mix in Turtles. While in some ways they bear a resemblance to the cannon galleon, their much shorter range means they're not ideal for raiding the shoreline other than maybe docks, which they do handle pretty easily thanks to their melee attack. The main selling feature is instead that they can trade one for one with anything, though that comes with a relatively high upfront cost. Even factoring in that cost, though, they still trade effectively against the galley line and actually do more damage against fire ships than even three galleons fighting together. They are vulnerable to fire ships up close, so a fleet of only Turtle ships can run into trouble, which is why one pairing I like in particular is to use them as support for your own discounted fire ships. That way, you keep enemy fire ships at bay while benefiting from the Turtle Ship's high attack against those, with this also being relatively anti-galleon as well.
Turtle ships are pricey but dominate the seas with their high attack and durability.
Now, Turtle Ships are admittedly pretty expensive to upgrade, but the elite upgrade in particular is important for increasing their range and giving them 50% more HP. Siege Engineers also applies to them as of somewhat recently, bringing them up to eight range compared to the galleon's ten. They are a bit slower, but if you're looking to cement control over water and can afford them, they're a solid addition to your existing Navy even in small numbers.
Now, let's take a look at Koreans' unique techs. The first is Eupseong, which gives guard towers and keeps plus two range, allowing them to match the range of bombard cannons and dromon even with Siege Engineers. At 300 food and 300 wood, this tech provides good value for the cost, though you need a castle first, so it's not a tech for a feudal Tower Rush. The other unique tech is more difficult to pronounce and gives the mangonel line plus one range. This one costs 800 wood and 500 gold, which is quite a bit considering Siege Engineers is only 500 food and 600 wood. That said, 10 range is the most of any Siege onager and makes them more threatening to enemy archers, many of which they'll outrange. Ideally, you get this tech if you're making onagers, even if it's just plus one range today, but the cost is sometimes prohibitive.
Koreans' unique units and techs provide a very pop-efficient land and water unit along with a late-game boost for towers and Siege. There's no question Koreans have many options to choose from. Let's focus on that variety by looking at their tech tree, starting with the archers. Here, you have the wood discount and free armor techs underpinning everything. The Archer line is always a safe choice for Koreans, with skirmishers also playing an extra effective role defending against archers thanks to free armor. You then have hand cannoneers, and even the Cavalry Archer is serviceable with its 20 wood discount and free techs, even if they're missing Bloodlines and Parthian Tactics. Theoretically, we could also include the war wagon here as an anti-archer generalist, and overall, I'd say it's an A-.
Next up for infantry, you're missing the final attack upgrade, which is somewhat made up for through their discount on their spear line. Even if those are a bit weaker, they can still play a nice filler or counter role with a decent Champion line as well. I'd say it's a middling minus. Moving on now to Cavalry, here you have no help from your eco bonuses, no Bloodlines, and lack the final blacksmith armor and attack upgrade, giving them probably the worst hussar and one of the worst Cavaliers in the game. That said, hussar is still used in combination with arbalester, for example, as a cheap filler unit. Altogether, I'd say it's just a C, and the stable is generally something Koreans should avoid leaning on too heavily.
Next up for Siege, they're well known for their Siege onager with 10 range and less minimum range, even if they're a far cry from what they were back in the day. The bombard Cannon is also a nice option to have here. Other than that, it's not too amazing as the wood discount doesn't apply, and I'd say it's a B+, carried mostly by the long-range onagers. Moving on to the Navy, this used to be a weakness of the civilization but is now helped out by discounted warships. Right off the bat, I'd say they're a B+ early on, and after 10 galleys or fire galleys, they can start to match a lot of other Naval civilization wood bonuses in savings. Late game, you can then play it safe and rely on your discounted fire ships and galleons or try to work in the turtle ship. Missing the demo line isn't the end of the world, and I think it's a B+ late for a B+ on water overall.
Taking a quick look at the monks, they're missing Redemption, which greatly restricts their use cases. Overall, I'd say they're fine but not a focus for the Civ, and I'd give them a C+. Using a few to heal War wagons never hurts. Next up for defenses, Koreans are unique for having a completely open University Tech Tree. You then have free tower upgrades, plus two range from unique tech, and faster Stone miners for great Towers early and late. You even have better villager line of sight as a small defensive boost to spot incoming raids, and I'd say this is an A.
Finally, for the trash units, that is, units that don't cost gold, the main strength here is your wood discount, which is offset by missing a few key techs. Hussar are definitely the weak point, and skirmishers are the highlight. It's a bit of a quantity over quality thing in this regard, even more so than trash usually is, but I'd say it still evens out to a solid B.
To wrap up with some final thoughts, there's no question Koreans have a lot of interesting things going on at different periods without ever feeling jumbled. Archers are always the safe thing to fall back on and make for a very solid opening. A small number of scouts or defensive skirmishers against a good Archer Civ are also reasonable choices. Heading into the mid-game, you can never go wrong with crossbows, mixing in skirmishers as needed, and have both an armor power spike and a unit discount to help out. On the other hand, missing bloodlines does restrict your options a bit, particularly at the stable, but Cavalry archers aren't necessarily as terrible as you might be used to with non-bloodline Civs. I would hesitate to ever commit too much to Knights, however, as they don't upgrade very well later. The main direction you're aiming for in the late game is using one of War wagons or arbalesters as your army core, ideally with discounted halbs or just filler hussars in front, then supported by Siege. Towers can be a reasonable option to mix as well but aren't necessary by any means.
Going by the stats, their best map is, of course, Nomad, where an early Tower rush or Castle drop can be incredibly effective. This is also where you benefit from your easy-to-overlook line of sight bonus for your villagers. Good eyesight in general is easy to take for granted until it starts to go, with many gamers developing a bit of myopia as they age. If that sounds like a problem afflicting you, be sure to check out my Korean villager-inspired online business, Spirit of the Lens, a glasses store that will increase your line of sight by three or your money back. It even has a great website thanks to this video's sponsor, Squarespace. Squarespace is an all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting or managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create a great-looking website, engage with your audience, and sell anything from products to content to time, all in one place. Using one of their templates, you can easily customize your website to your preferred aesthetic and then sell your product or services. This could include physical goods or digital content, including access to your own video library, with Squarespace handling the payment side of things so you can focus on the bigger picture. Using the built-in analytic and insight tools, you can then see exactly what's working and what's not, so you can continue to grow and scale your business more effectively. Go to squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/spiritofthelaw to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
So that was a revisit of the Koreans. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.