"Hey guys, Spirit of the Law here, in this page we're going to describe the Tropites. The Tropites are an infantry-based civilization with some interesting eco bonuses. Let's check 'em out." [Cue the leitmotif]
Spirit of the Law
is a YouTube channel dedicated to Age of Empires II content, though the channel also features content from other games of the series such as Age of Empires IV.
Among the featured content, there are civilization overview videos, and the "Through the Ages" series that describes how the civilizations from Age of Kings and The Conquerors evolved in the different incarnations and patches of the game.
The channel shows examples of:
- Art Evolution: When the game and its expansions facelifted their graphics, so did he. His video intros post-Definitive Edition features most of the same in-game scenes rendered entirely in DE. There's also less screen clutter, unless a specific part of the video requires a graphic explanation to go along with the voice, you'll only see in-game footage.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: Discussed in "Top Unusual (Outside the Box) Strategies" as one of the strategies, said strategy involving passing yourself as a friendly chatter in a team game and announcing your teammate that you're going to do a Knight rush hoping your opponent to field Halberdiers, so you can instead pull off an Archer rush.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: His earlier videos were narrated with a voice that made him sound bored. His intro was quite simple and lacked the gags of the later intros.
- Insane Troll Logic: His explanation in his overview of the Indians civilization as to why the Camels have the Ship armor class up to The Conquerors:"Ship. Ships are commonly made out of wood. Wood. It's brown, just like camels. "3 Ships" is an album by Yes frontman Jon Anderson. It's also the number of ships that Christopher Columbus on his voyage to the New World. 3. What was the third single from The Black Eyed Peas 2005 album "Monkey Business"? "My Humps". Hump. Camels are famous for their humps. Still don't believe me? Another name for a ship is a boat. Boat. Rhymes with goat. Goats. Are in the biological order Artiodactyla. So are camels."
- Jerkass to One: He loved to poke fun at the Saracens in his early videos:
- He frequently pokes fun at their team bonus (archers getting +1 attack against buildings) during his civilization overviews despite other team bonuses such as the Incas' faster farm building time being worse than the Saracens':"Saracens, you call that a team bonus? That's adorable, get outta here."
- He pulled a Pet the Dog moment when he did the Chinese civilization overview in regards to the Saracens' team bonus having strong synergy with the Chinese Chu Ko Nu. Plus, in no more than five minutes later in that same video, he went back to poking fun of that team bonus for being unable to help Chinese scorpions to win a scorpion fight."Good job Saracens! You did a thing."
- He frequently pokes fun at their team bonus (archers getting +1 attack against buildings) during his civilization overviews despite other team bonuses such as the Incas' faster farm building time being worse than the Saracens':
- Leitmotif: The early videos of the channel used "Shamburger" as their theme until SOTL got some original themes for them. He still retained his main theme, which is an original composition.
- No Fair Cheating: A variation, during the Celts overview, SOTL requested an agreement to be signed before explaining the sheep bonus that allowed Celt players to steal them from the enemy. The agreement requested players to not use this against him when playing the game.
- Not Hyperbole: In his overview of the Persian civilisation, he said that the Elite War Elephant is like a walking building. Complete with images showing that said Elephant's health and armour stats compare favourably to those of a house. Except this is a house that does trample damage.
- Outside-the-Box Tactic: Discussed in "Top Unusual (Outside the Box) Strategies", the main strategies being walling your opponent, the Saracen Monk Rush, the Mass Petard shock, massing Trebuchets and Halberdiers, using Onagers to cut your opponent's wood lines, pretending you left the chat on, and the Restless TC Syndrome.
- Running Gag:
- There was a time where any mentions of the Japanese (Spirit's favorite civ) triggered a "Go Japs" somewhere on the screen.
- Every time Elephants were mentioned, an Elephant fact appeared on the screen.
- Whenever there was a mention related to Onagers a small montage ("Onager Montage, Ontage") appeared.
- Zerg Rush: A common gag in his intros involved an explanation of the bonus synergies the Goths got in the way of an Association Football field with "Normal strategy" being a common football alignment (i.e. four defenders, three midfielders, an offensive midfielder and two forwards) and the "Goth strategy" consisting on 14 forwards piled up.
