Orthodoxy

Orthodoxy
Availability
Introduced in	The Forgotten
Civilization	Slavs
Age	Castle Age
Research
Researched at	Castle
Food	200
Gold	300
Research time	40 seconds
Effect
Monks +3/+3 armor

Orthodoxy is a technology in Age of Empires II: The Forgotten that is unique to the Slavs and can be researched at the Castle. Once researched, it gives Monks +3/+3 armor.

Strategy

Slavs have almost all Monastery technologies, lacking only Heresy, so Slavic Monks are above average. With Orthodoxy, the Slavs have one of the best and most durable Monks in the game as Orthodoxy makes them to have armor so they can support the front lines and resist enemy attacks for a while. That is important because three of the core units of the Slavic army are melee units (Champion, Boyar, and Halberdier) and in many cases they require the support of Monks to become more durable in battle. Ironically, the Slavs have the weakest resistance against enemy Monks, but despite this, Orthodoxy and the Monk support is highly valuable in an offensive situation.

The major benefit of Orthodoxy is the better performance against ranged units, the major counter of Monks, which results in, for example, 12 hits from Crossbows and 22 hits from Elite Skirmishers being needed to kill them in the Castle Age once Sanctity has been researched, up from 7 and 9 hits, respectively. On a similar note, when engaging with Hussars; even Monks with Sanctity researched will die in two hits from a fully upgraded Hussar, while Slavic Monks require three hits if they have Orthodoxy. That gives Slavic Monks an important improvement against the common Monk counters.

Furthermore, due to being already available in the Castle Age, Orthodoxy is a superb support for a Monk rush strategy, adding to the Slav's cheaper siege and great eco bonuses, which allows them to quickly organize their economy around wood and gold to provide the siege, Monks and technologies, with fewer Villagers needed on farms to keep producing Villagers, Knights and/or infantry if desired.

Team bonuses

• A team containing Berbers: With Kasbah researched, researching Orthodoxy is 25% faster.

History

Orthodox is the form of Christianity maintained by the Greek Orthodox Church and the countries evangelized from it. Christianity was first introduced to East Slavic State of Kievan Rus by Greek missionaries in the 9th century. Eventually, Christianity became the official state religion of Kievan Rus after its prince, Vladimir, was baptized in 988.