Boyar

The Boyar and the Elite Boyar is the Slavic unique unit in Age of Empires II: The Forgotten. Due to their high armour, they can beat any other melee unit except for the Teutonic Knight, the Imperial Camel and the War Elephant.

Tactics
The Boyar is a heavily armored cavalry unit, enabling them to absorb a lot of damage. They have a lower amount of hit points than most heavy cavalry units, but their higher armor and attack makes up for that. They are a critical part of a Slavic army as they lack the Paladin upgrade. However, they are less reliable against ranged units and arrow-firing buildings, because of lower hitpoints and pierce armour.

While their high armor against melee attacks enables them to defeat hand units, their pierce armor remains unchanged compared to other cavalry units. Ranged units such as archers and scorpions may pose a threat, but their primary weakness are halberdiers as with most cavalry units. Although the Boyar's higher hitpoints enables them to withstand halberdiers in one on one combat, a small group can easily kill one.

General Strategy
Slavs are primarily a siege and infantry civilization supported by cavalry and monks. Boyars serve as the main shock troops of the Slavic army, serving to decimate the opponent's army once their opposing counters have been dealt with. However overly relying on Boyars as a Slav can be disastrous due to their low hitpoints and rather high costs. In the tactical rock-paper-scissors, Boyar mainly protect the Slavic siege from other cavalry units such as knights, light cavalry and tarkans. Boyars can also ward off anti infantry units such as Jaguar Warriors and Cataphracts. In return the Slavic infantry protects the Boyars from Spearmen and Camelry. Siege is employed for protection versus Spearmen, Samurai, Genoese Crossbowmen, Mamelukes and War Elephants. Light Cavalry is needed to ward off enemy monks, while the player's own monks are needed to heal the Boyars, even more so due to their lower hitpoints and convert stronger units such as Teutonic Knights and War Elephants.

Castle Age
With statistics rivalling other cavalry civilization's early Imperial Age Cavaliers, the Boyar can take on the toughest castle age units such as Knights, Cataphracts and Teutonic Knights with ease. Although not recommended, they can stand up to Camels and Pikemen with their sheer armor and hitpoints. The only handicap in the castle age is the Boyar's high cost and the player having only one Castle at the most.

Imperial Age
Boyars can defeat any Cavaliers, except for Frankish ones. The upgrade to Elite Boyar is rather cheap compared to the cost to upgrade comparable units such as Cataphracts or Knights. This gives the Slavs a distinct advantage of fielding a unit comparable to the Paladin in the early Imperial Age itself. The Elite Boyar can defeat Paladins one-on-one, but loses to Elite Teutonic Knights and hence isn't as dominating as its Castle Age counterpart.

Counters
Due to their lower hitpoints, Boyars perform worse than Paladins versus their direct counters such as the Spearmen and Camels due to bonus damage being unmitigated by armor. The Indian Imperial Camel and the Saracen Heavy Camel, along with Mameluke are especially effective. The Japanese Samurai gets a bonus attack versus other unique units, Boyars included. Incas can field their anti cavalry Kamayuks against Boyars. Eagle Warriors (innate) and Berserks (after Chieftains) have a +4 attack bonus versus cavalry. In addition to their lower hitpoints, Boyar have lesser pierce armor than Paladins and hence are vulnerable to ranged pierce attacks. The Genoese Crossbowman with its anti cavalry bonus is especially dangerous. Slavs lack both heresy and faith making Boyars a prime target for Monks. The Teutonic Knight and War Elephants can simply overpower the Boyar.

Team Bonuses

 * A team containing Teutons: Boyars are more resistant to conversion.

Design
In the mod version, Age of Empires II: The Forgotten Empires, the Boyar has a distinctly European looking design. The unit itself is an unused 'beta' model for the Cataphract. Joan of Arc's mounted unit also uses the said model for its horse and sword. In the retail version, Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten however, the Boyar is replaced by a completely new model. This model's texture is appropriately region specific in appearance. The rider and the horse is encased in felt and leather with gold accents (covering the armor), the rider himself is armed with an axe instead of a sword and carries and a circular shield as well. In patch 3.6, the Boyar received minor redesigns.

History
''Boyar was a title given to anyone with high status, and only looked up to the ruling tzars and princes. The Boyars either had military control, large acres of land, or had many serfs, or servants. They were not nessesarily soldiers, for a Boyar could be a rich plantation owner, if they lived long enough.They did not nessesarily live only in Russia and Ukraine. They also lived in in Bulgaria, Moldova, and Belarus. The end of the middle ages eventually led to the downfall of the Boyars.''

Trivia

 * In the earlier versions of the Forgotten Empires mod, Elite Boyars had an extremely overpowered attack of 16 instead of the current 14.
 * The Boyar is the only unit not to get any attack bonuses, relying solely on their base stats.
 * Knights are almost similar, except Persian and Persian allied Knights get +2 bonus vs. archers.