You won’t get overwhelmed in castle age, and in Pikes are perfectly serviceable in imp against camels and heavy cav. Not top tier, but they are an answer, especially since you have decent arbs and gunpowder available. Meanwhile, that kind of discount helps you to get and pop cap faster and maintain it more easily, especially since the gold can be used research and fuel other unit types.
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They are not designed to counter TK honestly. Although I think the description was misleading and made us think that it will be an infantry version of Leitis. They are designed to be paired with ranged units. And even alone, they perform way better compared to their cost.
Krepost is the mini castle. Donjon is super tower. It is not even close to Krepost. Calling it mini castle is not describing it well
Doesn’t matter when you actually start dealing more damage than most of the infantry UU.
But when you combine you get more values than some other combinations. For examples, Berserk and Searjant are considering to be similar to them. Fortunately all 3 civs have Arbs. I really need to see Arbs + the infantry UU vs some other deathball combo and see how they perform. I think Poles will get the top position while Vikings with no UT researched will have the last spot.
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“”"""“the pros”""""""
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I don’t think they are supposed to counter tk.
The obuch is a support unit. It’s designed to be used in conjunction with other units and ramp up the damage over time as opposed to being a straight damage dealer. It’s a meat shield that the longer the fight goes the faster damage is done.
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Doesn’t matter when you actually start dealing more damage than most of the infantry UU.
This changes depeding on context.
Even in situations where the obuch would deal more damage than a champion, the extra attack does not start immediately.
Reread the post you’re replying to, there’s more detail there.
But when you combine you get more values than some other combinations. For examples, Berserk and Searjant are considering to be similar to them.
Berserks and serjeants are similar to obuch?
No, they’re not.
Three completely different infantry units.
Obuch will never be as good vs cavalry as a beserk and obuch will never be as good vs archers as a serjeant.
Yes and no. They are the closest in terms of stats.
True. But also close compared to other infantry UU.
I actually need to test. In terms of cost I highly doubt that. You are maybe right in terms of equal numbers.
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Let me quote the devs: “The Polish unique unit is the Obuch, a brutal infantryman whose war hammer tears the armor from enemy units. Obuchs are best used against expensive, heavily armored units that might otherwise pose a deadly threat to the rest of your army.”
Sounds like it was supposed to, they literally described Teutonic Knights or the Knight line in this introduction.
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I get what you’re saying here.
Sort of like how the leitis, cataphract and boyar are really similar?
Or how the Genonese crossbowman, longbowman and plumed archer are really similar?
Yeah, that makes sense to me. 
I actually need to test. In terms of cost I highly doubt that. You are maybe right in terms of equal numbers.
Might be good to test the things you’re arguing before claiming something is OP.
Gives you a bit more credibility.
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Just finished all 3 campaigns. Algirdas & Kestutis (Olgierd i Kiesztut) was easiest, Jadwiga was fun & challenging at times (specifically 4 & 6) & Jan Zizka was really good at showing the innovation of the Hussites.
I REALLY liked the day/night effect of Map Lighting for Jadwiga 4. Maybe some other, similar missions could implement it? (e.g. Hautevilles 4, Longshanks 2, Saladin 6)
I was also very close to getting all secondary objectives (on easy) for the first part of Jadwiga 6. I just didn’t manage to protect my Trebuchets & the last castle stood at half HP. I also forgot to collect relics, so that would’ve helped too.
2 things that got me about Grunwald:
How come there are no references to Bogurodzica, Gaude Mater Polonia & Vytautas’ cry of Lietuva in Jadwiga 6? Easily some of those lines in Jan Zizka 2 could be imported there too.
Why is King Wladyslaw Jagiello only referred to as such for his unit sprite in Jan Zizka 2 and throughout the Jadwiga Campaign he is always Jogaila? By the time of Jadwiga Missions 2-4 & 6 he was Christianised to become King of Poland and took the name Jagiello (as explained in the slides).
+1 more: Modern Names are applied to Lwow and the Galician towns in Jadwiga 2, but Marienburg isn’t called Malbork. 
Also, I don’t know if it’s a bug, but I won the pitched Battle of Grunwald (finale of Jadwiga 6) without being able to kill von Jungingen. I was trying to get to him with the Elite Obuch (like in Matejko’s painting!), but I got the “You are Victorious” screen before that happened?
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What was your army composition ? I did all secondary objectives on hard on first try, speaking to Lizard Union in last seconds, but I had to reply that because It cancels achievement. Teutons have huge melee armor so it is not good idea to go for melee unit. Obuch don’t help here if you are restricted to 25 minutes - you must be quick. Arbalest is the key, they are really good. As the game starts you should build some trebuchets ( remember your Bombard Cannons die to extra range Teuton Castles ), few archery ranges and like 2 addition tc to quickly boom.
Also remember to use “31” in chat so Vytautas will attack earlier.
If you kill his last Paladins too early, he will run away and disapear.
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I went for Winged Hussars to save gold (with extra 5-10 Obuchs). You’re right - Trebs are the only siege worth going for, but they are a bit slow to maneuver. I might try with Arbs, but you have to build the Archery ranges as well, whereas stables are there for you from the start and you can spam more stables & WHs.
I did 31 even before Jogaila introduces the first part of the scenario! 
BTW, what is the hint about the forest to the north being impenetrable? Is that just the fact that the map is divided in 2 or is there some tactical advantage for the last fight? (The Order’s knights got bogged down in the swamps IRL & our boys came from the forests to ambush them).
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I just beat all the campaigns about 5 minutes ago.
I did them all on hard my first time, except for Duel of the Dukes, which I had to put to moderate because it kicked my ■■■.
Algirdas & Kestutis was quite good. Fighting many groups of diverse enemies, lots of side objectives to do, different ways to complete missions and an overall decent story told well.
Jadwiga was excellent. Easily ranks as one of the best campaigns in the entire series. Fantastic and varied gameplay with very sophisticated levels and decent story that built on the Algirdas & Kestutis campaign in a meaningful way.
And then there was Jan Zizka, the campaign I was the most excited for, and it was just ok.
Despite it being a 3 sword campaign, I found it overall easier than Jadwiga.
So many tiny levels with not a lot of very interesting mechanics.
The more mechanically detailed levels like The Golden City and The Iron Lords were decent, but the rest were quite bland.
The storytelling really also really bothered me.
It felt like they weren’t sure to cover the exploits of Zizka’s life or just the Hussite period, so they did both and it made for a very uneven story.
It doesn’t really go into either the details of Zizka as a man or the Hussite cause because of this.
It also felt like they didn’t go much into detail of the religious aspects of the war, which is a bit hard to do considering it was a war over religion.
It almost feels like they were afraid of bringing up the topic much, so it feels very sanitised and inauthentic.
Because of this, the storytelling becomes even more vague in regards to the motivations of the characters.
The choices of the battles and how the story wrapped itself up was also very disappointing and it missed out on what could have been some great missions and a more nuanced, less clean story.
I think I enjoyed every campaign in LotW over Jan Zizka, which was my dream AoE2 campaign.
I’m slightly butthurt.
Overall, I really enjoyed these campaigns but it ended on a bit of a downer for me.
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Instead of joking around just name a single infantry UU that is closest to Obuch. I know you will say “None. All are different.”
Working on it, need time. I’ll very likely open a new thread though.
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Duel of the Dukes is hard and easy at the same time. Hard because you have to figure out enemy castle placement and 3 the best towns to take. And if you figure it out, you are beating mission in less than 10 minutes.
About campaigns I have same opinion. Jan Zizka is eassier than Jadwiga. I find only first Prague level really hard, but maybe because in missions where you can build and boom, enemies stay no chances againsts Hussite Wagons combined Haufnice.
Yep, so you can’t cut forest on the north and can’t access final battle.
Arbalests will pay back, because thanks to them, you can menage to quickly destroy all Prussian Trade Workshops. But don’t make too much ofcourse 
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So there is a range indicator if u enable it in the settings at least, and it also shows the area farms have to be placed within, in order to get the 10% extra instant food. But if u convert a Folwark it show a very weird area, seen in the screenshot below. BTW if u are not Poles (me, the blue player, was Teutons here), but in posession of a converted Folwark, this does not give u any extra instant food as it should be - so that is correct, at least.
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In terms of total cost -
30 Berserk = 36 Obuch.
30 Berserk can beat 23 Paladins. 24 is pretty even.
36 Obuch can beat 25 Paladins. Loses to 26.
Berserk needs 2 UTs to research but also you need to consider food and gold as equal resource which is not a realistic assumption in Imperial age. And still Obuch is slightly better. So your claim is at least wrong against generic Paladin.
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???
Elite War Elephants. It was a terrible comparison. I said quality which strong but extremely slow units aren’t exactly.
I don’t know if I was wrong exactly.
I did some tests myself and I was surprised at how well the obuch performed.
It seems to be down to their high HP just keeps them alive longer and that can be leveraged into an advantage in prolonged fights.
What I did notice is that adding more beserks was more significant than adding more obuchs.
I would say that beserks are still more population efficient vs paladin than the obuch and beserks are better vs melee units with low armour in general.
But I admit that from a cost efficiency perspective, their performance is somewhat comparable vs paladin.
I still wouldn’t call the obuch overpowered.
It’s slow and deals less damage than a champion in a number of situations.
It just reinforces to me why Poles shouldn’t get halberdier, since the obuch is their anti-cav unit of sorts.
I think it comes down to numbers.
If you have much more obuchs than the opponent has units you tear down the armor much faster in sequence - i hope you understand what i mean.
So the obuch snowballs quite well with numbers.
But that also means that low numbers of obuchs may also be quite weak and easy to pick of.
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