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This article is about the unit in Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten. For for unit in Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition - Knights of the Mediterranean, see Boyar (Age of Empires III). |
| “ | Slavic unique cavalry unit. Resistant to melee attack. | ” |
| —Age of Empires II description | ||
The Boyar is the unique unit of the Slavs in Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten. It is a heavily armored cavalry unit.
Boyars can be upgraded to Elite Boyars in the Imperial Age.
Tactics[]
The Boyar is a heavy cavalry unit akin to the Knight line which importantly has high melee armor but moves slightly slower. Importantly, it has the same pierce armor as the Knight line and costs -5 gold when compared to the Knight's cost. The high melee armor greatly enhances its strength when fighting light units which do not deal significant bonus damage, such as light cavalry, Karambit Warriors, Eagle Warriors, Ghulams, and Throwing Axemen.
When compared to a generic but fully upgraded Knight, say a Spanish one, the Elite Boyar lags behind in hit points when compared to the Paladin, but has the same attack. However, when compared to the Slavic Knight line, which lacks the Paladin upgrade, the Boyar is the much superior option even ignoring the cost difference, aside from its slower attack rate, which is same as that of the Paladin. Its production time is decent, as one Castle Boyar production is same as two Stable Knight production.
The Castle Age Boyar has +2 melee armor and +2 attack over the Knight. In melee fights, this roughly translates to a Lithuanian Knight with four Relics. Another way to look at this is that compared to a Burgundian Cavalier, the Boyar has +2 melee armor. In other words, in melee situations, the Castle Age Boyar provides the same strength as the Imperial Age unit, the Cavalier. The Elite Boyar takes the melee armor boost even further and has +6 melee armor over the Knight line's, which is always 2. Melee armor aside, it has +10 hit points, +1 pierce armor, and +2 attack over the Cavalier, but -30 hit points when compared to the Paladin.
While the Boyar holds up better in melee fights better than the Knight line, it does not play very differently than the Knight line. It is countered by the same units, such as Monks, Halberdiers, Heavy Camel Riders, etc. Stronger melee units such as War and Battle Elephants can also deal with Boyars. While the Monaspa loses in equal numbers, large groups of Monaspa can beat the Boyar due to the extra attack they get, while also costing less resources, as well as having self-regeneration and high melee armor. The Leitis, Wootz Steel infantry, and Composite Bowmen deserve a special mention since they ignore all armor. However, the Boyar is not countered by the non-Heavy Camel Rider, though it remains as a cost-effective counter. Since Boyars move slower than Knights, mounted archers, such as the Mangudai, are an even bigger threat. The threat of Monks is enhanced by the Slavs lack of Heresy.
There is no one unit in the Slavic technology tree which perfectly complements the Boyar. As such, one must mix and match units depending on what the opponent is making. Light Cavalry are great against Monks. Scorpions are good against infantry and archers. Infantry is good against Heavy Camel Riders. The Slavs have bonuses to support the production of all these units. While enemy heavy cavalry and elephants can be fought with both Boyars and Pikemen, it is wiser to convert them, which is supported by another bonus for Monks (faster movement).
Boyars on the other hand are the main shock troops. They can raid, destroy towns, and even raze Castles in addition to fighting enemy troops head-on. However, the player may instead use a combination of siege and infantry as their main army, in which case, Boyars are supposed to deal with enemy siege, mainly Siege Onagers and Bombard Cannons, which can destroy this composition.
Getting a good number of Boyars requires having multiple Castles to sustain a good production, and researching the Castle Age unique technology Detinets turns the Castle cost from 650 stone to 260 wood, 390 stone, thus making Castles more accessible and massing Boyars easier. Being created from Castles also means they are more accessible when creating Castles across the map to secure map control.
Comparison with similar units[]
 Boyar line
|
Burgundian  Knight line
| |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | 60 food, 70 gold | 60 food, 75 gold |
| Training time | 15 seconds | 30 seconds |
| Movement speed | 1.3 | 1.35 |
| Other |  Bloodlines: +20 hit points
|
 Do not have Bloodlines
|
 Castle Age
|
Boyar
|
 Cavalier
|
| Hit points | 100 | 120 |
| Attack | 12 | 12 |
| Attack speed | 1.9 | 1.8 |
| Armor | 4/2 | 2/2 |
| Line of Sight | 5 | 4 |
| Upgrade cost and time |
1,000 food, 600 gold 60 seconds |
650 food, 375 gold 170 seconds |
 Imperial Age
|
 Elite Boyar
|
 Paladin
|
| Hit points | 130 | 160 |
| Attack | 14 | 14 |
| Attack speed | 1.9 | 1.9 |
| Armor | 8/3 | 2/3 |
| Line of Sight | 5 | 5 |
Further statistics[]
As Boyars are unique to the Slavs, only technologies that are available to them are shown in the following table:
| Strengths and weaknesses | |
|---|---|
| Strong vs. | Elite Skirmishers, most melee units, siege weapons |
| Weak vs. | Pikemen, Camel Riders, Monks, Kamayuks, Teutonic Knights, Mamelukes, War Elephants, Genoese Crossbowmen, Samurai, Leiciai, Obuchs, Composite Bowmen |
| Technologies | |
|---|---|
 Hit points
|
Bloodlines (+20)
|
| Attack |  Forging (+1) Iron Casting (+1) Blast Furnace (+2)
|
| Armor |  Scale Barding Armor (+1/+1) Chain Barding Armor (+1/+1) Plate Barding Armor (+1/+2)
|
| Conversion resistance |  Devotion (+1 min, +1 max) Faith (+4 min, +4 max)
|
 Movement speed
|
 Husbandry (+10%)
|
| Creation speed |  Conscription (+33%) Kasbah (+25%, with a Berber ally only)
|
| Team bonuses | |
|---|---|
| Conversion resistance |  Teutons (+3 min, +1 max)
|
Team bonuses[]
Bulgarians: Researching technologies at the Blacksmith is 80% faster.- Huns: Researching Bloodlines and Husbandry is 20% faster.
- Lithuanians: Researching Devotion and Faith is 20% faster.
- Portuguese: Technologies that benefit Boyars are researched 25% faster.
Changelog[]
The Forgotten[]
- Boyars move at a speed of 1.35 and are created in 23 (20 for Elite) seconds.
- Elite Boyars have 6 melee armor.
- Boyars have 1 (2 for Elite) pierce armor.
- Boyars cost 50 food, 80 gold.
The African Kingdoms[]
- With patch 4.8, Boyars move at a speed of 1.4.
Definitive Edition[]
- (Elite) Boyar training time reduced to 15 seconds.
- With update 36906, Boyars have 2 (3 for Elite) pierce armor, and move at a speed of 1.3.
Lords of the West[]
- With update 50292, Elite Boyars have 8 melee armor.
Dynasties of India[]
- With update 81058, Boyars cost 60 food, 70 gold.
Heroes[]
There are two heroes in the game with the appearance of a Boyar:
Design[]
In the mod version, Age of Empires II: Forgotten Empires, the Boyar had a distinctly European looking design, as it was an unused 'beta' model for the Cataphract. (Mounted) Joan of Arc used the same model for its horse and sword. In the retail version, The Forgotten, however, the Boyar was replaced by a completely new model. This model's texture is appropriately region specific in appearance. 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 a circular shield as well. In patch 3.6, the Boyar received minor redesigns.
Trivia[]
- In the Forgotten Empires mod, the Boyar's model was a modified version of Joan of Arc, which is also based on Cataphract's beta model.
- Before the Definitive Edition, the Boyar was one of four units without any innate attack bonus, the others being the Knight line, the Militia, and the Turtle Ship.
- The Boyar appears to be wielding a bardiche, a hafted-axe-based weapon whose use started in 15th century Russia and later became standard equipment for Strelets. It was also used in Poland, where similarly to Russia, it was used to rest handguns when firing. It was also used for execution duty.
- With 11 melee armor, a fully upgraded Elite Boyar has the highest melee armor of all cavalry units and the second highest of all land units, only behind of the Elite Teutonic Knight with 13 melee armor.
- In the beta, Elite Boyars had 16 attack.
- In the beta, due to a bug, the Boyar did not have death sounds.
- The Elite Boyar might have the best armor for any unit in the game, as they can resist a lot of melee damage and also being quite resistant against pierce attacks (they can take up to 50 Arbalester shots).
- The Boyars are often nicknamed mounted Teutonic Knights for having very high melee armor, decent pierce armor, and are the joint-slowest among the non–elephant cavalry units since update 36906.
- The Slavic unique unit, Boyar, which was an aristocratic social class, was historically not found among the West Slavs (Poles and Bohemians).
History[]
A boyar was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Bulgarian, Serbian, East Slavic, Wallachian, and Moldavian and later, Romanian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes (in Bulgaria, tsars), from the 10th century to the 17th century. The rank has lived on as a surname in Russia, Ukraine and Romania, and in Finland, where it is spelled Pajari.
Also known as bolyar, this word appears in various languages include Bulgarian: боляр or болярин; Ukrainian: буй or боярин; Russian: боя́рин, tr.boyarin, IPA: [bɐˈjærʲɪn]; Romanian: boier, IPA: [boˈjer]; and Greek: βογιάρος.
The word is likely derived from the plural form of the Bulgarian title boyila, boyle ("noble") attested in Bulgar inscriptions, in Old Church Slavonic as болꙗринъ boljarinŭ (sg.), болꙗрина boljarina (du.), болꙗре boljare (pl.), as βωυλε bоyle, βοιλας, βοηλας, βοιλᾶς boilas, βουληα boylea, βολιᾶς bolias, βοιλάδες boilades and βολιάδες boliades in the Byzantine Greek documents. Multiple different derivation theories of the word have been suggested by scholars and linguists: Watkins derived the title from Turkic *boyla er with er meaning "man" and boyla "Turkic nobleman of a rank below a khan"; even so, Clauson (1972:385) proposed that the boyla had a pre-Turkic, possibly Xiongnu, origin. The title entered Old East Slavic as была byla (nom. sing.) & былями bylyami (instr. pl.) (attested solely in The Tale of Igor's Campaign) (possibly from unattested *bŭila *бъіла or *бъила).
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