Supremacy

Supremacy
Original
Availability
Introduced in	The Conquerors
Civilization	Spanish
Age	Imperial Age
Research
Researched at	Castle
Food	400
Gold	250
Research time	60 seconds
Effect
Increases Villager combat skills

Supremacy is a technology in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors that is unique to the Spanish and can be researched at the Castle once the Imperial Age is reached. Once researched, it significantly enhances Villager combat skills and durability by increasing their attack by +6, their armor by +2/+2, and their hit points by +40.

Strategy

Supremacy vastly improves Villagers' durability, as it not only improves their hit points and armor, but also allows them to fend themselves from weaker infantry and Light Cavalry, making them ideal for building and repairing walls, towers, and Castles near the front line.

Combined with Sappers, Villagers could be used offensively to undermine enemy buildings. This is especially effective against AI players because they frequently ignore Villagers if their troops are occupied elsewhere. It is important to keep in mind, however, that researching Supremacy will not change the Villagers' behavior to be like regular military units, so micromanaging a regiment of Villagers will still be difficult, as they will not automatically attack enemies.

In the early Imperial Age, the advantage of fighting with Villagers is that it instantly provides a large army, as the Villagers are already at the players disposal. However, this will cripple the player's economy, so they should be sure it is worth taking the risk of losing a lot of Villagers. Anyway, in the late Imperial Age, Villagers will not be able to stand against enemy units anymore.

Stat board of a Villager with Loom and Supremacy

Supremacy is often used to counter Monk rushes in the Imperial Age, mainly because the Villagers have enough attack to take down any enemy Monks and the fact that converting Villagers holds actually little to no value as opposed to more expensive units such as Conquistadors and Paladins.

Supremacy also synergizes with the Spanish civilization bonus of +30% construction speed as the Villagers can get a lot of abuse in the frontlines for building military facilities as they will be less prone to be killed by the enemy defending army, making them probably the best frontline support Villagers in the game.

Team bonuses

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

Trivia

• Supremacy is possibly inspired by the Santas Hermandades, peacekeeping militias organized to defend Spanish towns.
• Another possible explanation (not related to Reconquista however): the Age of Discovery (or late game, in gameplay terms) was the infancy of the powerful and ubiquitous Spanish Empire , which became a major power of the world for centuries to come. The famous, commonly attributed to the British Empire, "the empire on which the sun never sets" was used earlier by the Spanish . Coupled with the bit above, that says that Spanish villagers make for aggressive expanding, translates into making the Spanish "conquer" the whole map, mimicking history.

History

“	The peasants of Spain lived especially hard lives in an era when life was not easy for anyone. The difference was that Spain was a battleground for much of the Middle Ages as the Christian kingdoms in the north strived to reconquer the peninsula from Saracens who had invaded in the 8th century. Spanish peasants were therefore also warriors part of the time. This was a fact that the French army under Napoleon would learn the hard way in the early 19th century.	”
—The Conquerors manual