Civilizations: Age of Kings/The Conquerors | HD Edition | Definitive Edition | Return to Rome (AoE1)
Campaigns: Age of Kings/The Conquerors | HD Edition | Definitive Edition
Non-Unique Units
open/close all folders
This page lists the universal and regional units, including their upgrades (universal, regional or civ-specific). For the unique, non-regional, non-upgrade units, check these pages:
- AoE2 Original Civilizations: Longbowman (British), Cataphract (Byzantines), Woad Raider (Celts), Chu Ko Nu (Chinese), Throwing Axeman (Franks), Huskarl (Goths), Samurai (Japanese), Mangudai (Mongols), War Elephant (Persians), Mameluke (Saracens), Teutonic Knight (Teutons), Berserk and Longboat (Vikings), Jaguar Warrior (Aztecs), Tarkan (Huns), War Wagon and Turtle Ship (Koreans), Plumed Archer (Mayans), Conquistador and Missionary (Spanish).
- AoE2 HD Edition Civilizations: Ghulam (Hindustanis), Kamayuk and Slinger (Incas), Genoese Crossbowman and Condottiero (Italians), Magyar Huszar (Magyars), Boyar (Slavs), Camel Archer and Genitour (Berbers), Shotel Warrior (Ethiopians), Gbeto (Malians), Organ Gun and Caravel (Portuguese), Arambai (Burmese), Ballista Elephant (Khmer), Karambit Warrior (Malay), and Rattan Archer (Vietnamese).
- AoE2 Definitive Edition Civilizations: Konnik (Bulgarians), Kipchak (Cumans), Leitis (Lithuanians), Keshik and Flaming Camel (Tatars), Coustillier and Flemish Militia (Burgundians), Serjeant (Sicilians), Hussite Wagon (Bohemians), Obuch (Poles), Ratha (Bengalis), Urumi Swordsman and Thirisadai (Dravidians), Chakram Thrower and Shrivamsha Rider (Gurjaras), Centurion (Romans), Composite Bowman and Warrior Priest (Armenians), Monaspa (Georgians).
Town Center units
Villager
The Worker Unit for all factions. They build structures, gather resources, and while they can fight, it is best to keep them away from combat.
- Call-Back: The Burgundian "Flemish Revolution" turns all Villagers into Flemish Militia, akin to the Revolutionary nations of Age of Empires III and the Ragnarok god power in Age of Mythology.
- Instant Militia: Usually you'll be wise to keep your villagers out of combat and protected at all times. However, certain civilizations have ways of spicing up their villagers' combat capabilities:
- Gothic villagers can survive encounters against ferocious wild animals by way of their free Loom and scaled wild animal attack bonus.
- Incan villagers, from Castle Age onwards, benefit from infantry-based Blacksmith upgrades.
- Magyar villagers kill animals with a single strike.
- Supremacy-boosted Spanish villagers get a whopping +6 attack, which allows 10 of them survive a fight against a Champion and lose only one.
- One-Hit KO: Magyar villagers can kill wild animals with a single hit.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: Villagers come in male and female varieties, but the stats for both are the same.
- Reduced Resource Cost: Hindustani villagers are cheaper to create, starting at 10% in Dark Age and going all the way to 25% in Imperial Age.
- Regenerating Health: Polish villagers get a scaled Healing Factor that starts in 10 HP/s at Dark Age and goes all the way up to 25 HP/s on Imperial Age, allowing them to survive raids in higher ages.
- Worker Unit: The backbone of your civ's economy, being able to hunt, fish, forage, herd and farm for food, chop trees for wood, mine for gold and stone, and construct all buildings. Oddly, when hunting animals they will use a bow, which is more effective than the knife they use against units.
Barracks units
Militia Line
Militia/Man-at-Arms/Long Swordsman/Two-Handed Swordsman/Champion/Legionary
Certain Civilizations have access to another upgrade in the Imperial Age called the Champion, while the Romans have an exclusive Two-Handed Swordsman upgrade, the Legionary.
- Balance Buff: Since the Militia Line tends to fall out of use past the early game, they received several buffs post-The Forgotten like the Arsonnote , Suppliesnote , and Gambesonsnote upgrades, as well as Trackingnote being made a core gameplay mechanic, along with improvements to their stats.
- BFS: As their name implies, the Two-Handed Swordsmen (as well as Champions) carry giant swords that are almost as long as they are tall and require two hands.
- Discard and Draw: From Definitive Edition onwards, the Malay's Forced Levy exchanges 20 gold units from the line's cost with 20 food units, turning the Militia line into a so-called "trash unit".
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Legionaries carry a huge shield and have extra armor and HP in order to reflect this.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: The Romans cannot upgrade their Long Swordsmen to Two-Handed Swordsmen (and consequently Champions). Instead, they have their own upgrade, the Legionary, who deals less damage but is more durable than the Champion.
- Non-Indicative Name: Despite what the name says, the Long Swordsmen do not actually wield longswords; while larger than those of the Men-at-Arms, their swords are still carried in one hand.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: A problem the Long Swordsmen and ranks above it have long suffered from. The Spearmen line units are weaker than the Militia Line but are cheaper and better at countering cavalry, and since games that reach the Castle Age see the Knight line get more use than the Militia line, their Anti-Cavalry role made many players favor the Spearmen. Once players reach the Castle Age, they have access to Knights, which are faster, stronger, and more durable, so despite their greater cost, most players rely on them.
- Primitive Clubs: Militia, the starting unit on this line, carry spiked clubs, as opposed to the more impressive swords the more advanced units carry.
- Reduced Resource Cost: Supplies (introduced in Definitive Edition to replace Tracking) reduces the food cost of the Militia line by 15.
- Shields Are Useless: The Men-at-Arms gain purely cosmetic shields as their armor isn't any better than a Militia. The Two-Handed Swordsman and Champion have no shields, which doesn't lower their protection.
- Uniqueness Decay: Prior to Definitive Edition, Slavs got Tracking for free, while everyone else had to research it for the meager price of 50 Food. Definitive Edition made Tracking a core gameplay mechanic by giving it for free to all civilizations.
- Zerg Rush: Militia line units are cheap, so a popular strategy is to amass them in the early game to go for a quick kill before the enemy can advance to a later age. Malay's Forced Levy technology removes their gold cost, allowing them to be massed even when gold runs low.
Spearman Line
Spearman/Pikeman/Halberdier
- Anti-Cavalry: They wield large polearms that inflict bonus damage to cavalry.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Most civilizations that can train the Camel Rider line do not have access to the Halberdier upgrade (or at least get full upgrades for them). This is due to their overlapping Anti-Cavalry role.
- Not the Intended Use: Spearman line units are designed as Anti-Cavalry, since without that bonus damage, they are weak units. However, they are cheap and don't cost any gold. Plus, Knight line units generally see more use past Castle Age than the Militia line, so it is common to see players rely on Spearmen in place of Militia.
Eagle Warrior Line
Eagle Scout/Eagle Warrior/Elite Eagle Warrior
While the line was present from The Conquerors onwards, The African Kingdoms introduced the Eagle Scout unit in order to give American civs another alternative in the Feudal Age.
- Anti-Cavalry: The line gets +2 bonus attack against cavalry units and +1 bonus attack against camel units.
- Army Scout: Their high movement speed and line of sight allows them to serve in this role for the American civilizations.
- Fragile Speedster: While not as fast as the Scout Cavalry line, they are the fastest infantry in the game.
- Necessary Drawback: Due to the lack of counters early on, the line takes 60 seconds to be trained in Feudal Age. By Castle Age, the training time is reduced to 35 seconds. The unit also cannot damage passive huntables.
- Starting Units: When playing a Native American civilisation, you start with an Eagle Scout, who cannot be trained before advancing to the Feudal Age.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The line acts as one for the other civilizations' Scout Cavalry units. They have ample line of sight and the same Auto Scout ability as the Scout Cavalry line. The only difference is that they're still vulnerable to Monk conversion.
- Took a Level in Badass: Since African Kingdoms makes the Eagle Warrior into an upgrade for the Eagle Scout, its stats are buffed in the expansion.
Archery Range units
Archer Line
Archer/Crossbowman/Arbalester
- Armor Is Useless: The Arbalesters wear plate mail, which is merely cosmetic. Their armor isn't any better than the lower-rank archers.
- Long-Range Fighter: The Archer Line benefits from several upgrades that increase their range, making them especially dangerous in mass.
- Zerg Rush: The Archer Line are cheap units, so when massed, they are especially dangerous in a Feudal Age rush. Persians can make them even more affordable in Definitive Edition with their Kamandaran unique tech, which lowers the total resource cost for the unit line and removes their gold cost, making them easy to mass even in the late game.
Skirmisher Line
Skirmisher/Elite Skirmisher/Imperial Skirmisher
In Team games, a Vietnamese ally grants their allies the ability to further upgrade their Elite Skirmishers into Imperial Skirmishers.
- Javelin Thrower: The Skirmisher Line throw javelins at enemies.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: The Skirmisher Line are anti-archer units that aren't good for much else if the player doesn't face archers. Luckily they are very good at this, and the threat of massed archers means they frequently come in handy.
Cavalry Archer Line
Cavalry Archer/Heavy Cavalry Archer
- Fragile Speedster: While they are more durable and hit harder than the Archer Line, they still have less damage and HP than Militia Line units from the same age, with the Bloodlines upgrade, note only bringing their HP up to that of a Long Swordsman. Their main strength is their speed, with their mobility allowing them to fire at enemies, retreat out of their reach, and fire again.
- Hit-and-Run Tactics: Cavalry Archers are not meant to stand and shoot. Players need to ensure they stay out of the reach of slower units, which, if done correctly, means melee units will never get close to them.
- Horse Archer: As their name implies, they are archers who ride horses.
Hand Cannoneer
- Anti-Infantry: They get a significant damage bonus against infantry except the Condottiero, making them dangerous to almost all infantry, especially the Spearman line.
- Balance Buff: In the base game, Hand Cannoneers and other gunpowder units have their own technologies that need to be researched for players to access them. As these technologies are expensive, on top of the cost of researching Chemistry, they no longer need to be researched in The Conquerors.
- Bottomless Magazines: Hand Cannoneers use what is clearly a single-shot weapon, but they never run out of ammo.
- Glass Cannon: Hand Cannoneers do not benefit from damage upgrades to ranged units. They still do greater damage than Arbalesters, especially if they are attacking infantry, where their bonus damage allows them to deal more than double the damage of fully upgraded Arbalesters. They do start with a point of melee armor, making them slightly more durable than Arbalesters. However, they have the same HP, so they are just as vulnerable to ranged fire.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Their primitive firearms' accuracy is very poor at long ranges, as was the case in real life.
Elephant Archer line
Elephant Archer/Elite Elephant Archer
- Horse Archer: A variation, rather than riding horses, they ride elephants.
- Stone Wall: The Elephant Archer's offensive capability is underwhelming for its cost (compared to the melee Battle Elephant and War Elephant), only hitting as hard as a Cavalry Archer. They can soak up tons of arrows that are fired back at them, though.
- Uniqueness Decay: Used to be the unique unit of the Indians. When the Indians became a Decomposite Character in Dynasties of India, the Elephant Archer became a regional unit that remains exclusive to three of the four Indian civilisations.
Stable units
Scout Cavalry Line
Scout Cavalry/Light Cavalry/Hussar/Winged Hussar
The Lithuanians and Poles can upgrade Light Cavalry to Winged Hussars, which are stronger than normal Hussars.
- Army Scout: Their high movement speed and line of sight puts them in this role for most civilizations.
- Boring Yet Practical: The basic Scout Cavalry isn't much of a fighter, but their line of sight is vital for early game recon. They also do not cost gold, so if it runs low, they act as substitutes for players who can no longer afford the Knight line.
- Fragile Speedster: Units of the Scout Cavalry Line are weaker than the Militia Line. But they are fast, even beating the Cavalry Archer Line. Their speed means they are surprisingly deadly against archers and siege units, which have difficulty hitting them. The basic Scout cavalry getting a boost to its speed in the Feudal Age actually makes it a hair faster than the Light cavalry and Hussar.
- Mage Killer: Most cavalry units are vulnerable to conversion by Monks. The Scout Cavalry line lacks their vulnerability and does extra damage to Monks, making them useful as support for the stronger cavalry.
- Starting Units: In a standard game, if not playing as Gurjaras or an American civilisation, the player starts off with a Scout Cavalry, a unit that can only be trained starting from the Feudal Age.
Knight Line
Knight/Cavalier/Paladin/Savar
- Awesome, yet Impractical: Upgrading Cavaliers to Paladins is typically this in one-on-one games. Paladins are stronger, but the upgrade is so expensive that the resources are generally better spent creating more Cavaliers. In team games where resources are plentiful and the Knight line can benefit from team bonuses, Paladins see more use.
- The Faceless: The helmets on Cavaliers and Paladins hide their faces from view.
- Lightning Bruiser: Knight line units hit harder than infantry, attack bonuses notwithstanding, are much more durable, and are faster. As a result, once players reach the Castle Age, they are often favored over the Militia line. Balance Buffs to the Militia line means they can potentially beat Knight line units of the same level with equal resources, but the greater HP and armor of the Knight line means they last longer against defensive structures.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: The Persians cannot upgrade their Cavaliers to Paladins. Instead, they have their own upgrade, the Savar, who has less HP but is cheaper to upgrade, deals bonus damage against archers and has better armor.
- Vanilla Unit: The Knight line is one of the few unit lines in the game without any attack bonuses against other unit types (with the exception of Persian teammates against archers). This is to compensate for their powerful combination of high HP, armor, movement speed, and attack.
Camel Rider Line
Camel Scout/Camel Rider/Heavy Camel Rider/Imperial Camel Rider
In Dynasties of India, the Gurjaras get the Camel Scout as an exclusive unit, while the Hindustanis get the exclusive Imperial Camel Rider upgrade.
- Anti-Cavalry: They are cavalry units that specialize in killing other cavalry.
- Army Scout: Camel Scouts serve in this role for the Gurjaras as one of their Starting Units. Downplayed in that the Gurjaras still have access to the Scout Cavalry line later in the game.
- BFS: Heavy Camel Riders carry much larger swords than their un-upgraded counterparts.
- Horse of a Different Color: A realistic example of cavalry who ride on camels.
- Lightning Bruiser: Compared to the Knight Line, the Camel Rider Line is faster and deals greater damage against other cavalry, though they do not hit as hard against other units. Camel Riders and Heavy Camel Riders have as many hit points as Knights and Cavaliers, respectively, though they lack the Knight line's armor.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Most civilizations that can train the Camel Rider line do not have access to the Halberdier upgrade (or at least get full upgrades for either). This is due to their overlapping Anti-Cavalry role.
- Regenerating Health: Berber Camel Rider units can regenerate HP after their Imperial Age unique technology is researched.
- Starting Units: In a standard game, a Gurjara player starts off with a Camel Scout, a unit that can only be trained starting from the Feudal Age.
Battle Elephant Line
Battle Elephant/Elite Battle Elephant
- Achilles' Heel: Battle Elephants are incredibly vulnerable to conversion, which isn't helped by all of the Southeast Asian civilizations except Malay, as well as the Bengalis and Dravidians, lacking Heresy. However, no Southeast Asian civilization is exactly dependent on incredibly expensive units (especially the Burmese and Khmer, who are known for their versatile tech tree).
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Dravidian Battle Elephants get the benefits from Wootz Steel, enabling their attacks to ignore armor.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Khmer Battle Elephants fit into this. Not only the Khmer have access to all the standard cavalry upgrades, but their Battle Elephants move 10% faster than the rest, and deal a lot of damage with Tusk Swords. The only big drawback is that they are easily converted by enemy Monks since the Khmer lack Heresy. That being said, the Khmer don't necessarily have to go with Battle Elephants, since they are open to different strategies depending on the situation.
- Mighty Glacier: Quite slow on the battlefield, but can take a lot of damage thanks to their humongous 250 HP and +1/+2 armor, as expected from an Elephant. Some civs also have bonuses for them in these regards:
- Bengali Battle Elephants take -25% bonus damage from Pikemen and have extra conversion resistance to Monks.
- Burmese Battle Elephants have +1/+1 armor from Dynasties of India onwards, with their unique Castle Age tech "Howdah" granting them an extra +1/+1 armor.
- Vietnamese Battle Elephants benefit from their unique Castle Age tech "Chatras", which gives them +100 HP.
- Necessary Drawback:
- Dravidian Battle Elephants get the benefits from Medical Corps and Wootz Steel, but in exchange lack Husbandry, Bloodlines and Plate Barding Armor and cannot be upgraded into Elite Battle Elephants.
- In exchange for their Reduced Resource Cost, Malay Battle Elephants lack the Bloodlines, Chain Barding Armor and Plate Barding Armor upgrades, making them quite weak.
- The sturdier Vietnamese Battle Elephants cannot benefit from the Blast Furnace upgrade, as their civ lacks them.
- Reduced Resource Cost: Malay Battle Elephants cost -30% in Castle Age and -40% in Imperial Age.
- Regenerating Health: Dravidian Battle Elephants get the benefits from their unique tech "Medical Corps", being able to regenerate 20 HP per minute.
- Stone Wall: Vietnamese Battle Elephants are more durable thanks to Chatras and their access to Bloodlines. However, their Battle Elephants cannot benefit from "Blast Furnace" and Husbandry, meaning they cannot catch up to even foot archers, and, as a result, they serve more as a meat shield to protect your archers.
- Zerg Rush: Malay Battle Elephants are cheaper and massable, putting emphasis on numerical superiority over raw strength.
Steppe Lancer Line
Steppe Lancer/Elite Steppe Lancer
- Fragile Speedster: Cuman and Tatar Steppe Lancers have a meager 80 HP in exchange for their speed.
- Lightning Bruiser:
- Mongol Steppe Lancers have 98 HP, making them a bit tankier than the Cumans and Tatars.
- Tatar Steppe Lancers benefit from "Silk Armor" granting them an extra +1/+1 armor.
- Necessary Drawback:
- In exchange for their speed bonus, Cuman Steppe Lancers cannot benefit from Husbandry's extra +10% speed.
- Tatar Steppe Lancers get a +20% damage bonus when attacking from elevation. This comes at the cost of their short line of sight.
Xolotl Warrior
- Moveset Clone: The Xolotl Warrior's initial stats are completely identical to the Knight's, though in practice the Xolotl Warrior is weaker since the Aztecs and Incas have no access to the Cavalier upgrade and all technologies that improve cavalry.
Siege Workshop units
Battering Ram Line
Battering Ram/Capped Ram/Siege Ram
All non-Indian Civilizations have access to the Battering Ram in the Castle Age and upgrade it to the Capped Ram in the Imperial Age. Far fewer can upgrade the Capped Ram to the Siege Ram.
- Anti-Structure: The Battering Ram line has low base damage and heavy bonus damage against buildings. As such, they can cause enormous damage to structures, but are useless against anything that isn't a building or siege engine.
- Awesome Personnel Carrier: The Conquerors allows this unit line to garrison infantry and archers. Battering Rams can garrison four units, Capped Rams can garrison five, and Siege Rams can garrison six. This helps protect these units from archers while increasing the ram's range and anti-building bonus damage.
- Battering Ram: The Battering Ram is a stout log designed to demolish enemy buildings by repeatedly slamming into them. Rams are slow and can only attack in melee, but are capable of dealing great damage to buildings and are nearly impervious to archer (including tower) fire.
- Heavily Armored Mook: Zigzagged. Battering Rams have by far the highest pierce armor in the game (195 when fully upgraded) and are nearly impervious to arrow fire, and are also one of the few units with negative melee armor.
- Siege Engines: Dedicated Anti-Structure siege units that are cheaper than most other siege units and far more durable. At a cost, they have to get in close to deal damage.
- Stone Wall: Even the basic Battering Ram has more HP than a Paladin with Bloodlines. While garrisoning units makes them extremely fast, they have low damage unless they attack siege units or structures.
Mangonel Line
Mangonel/Onager/Siege Onager
- Achilles' Heel: Mangonels are highly vulnerable to cavalry, whose speed allows them to easily dodge the projectiles and get inside the Mangonel's minimum range.
- Glass Cannon: Aside from their high pierce armor, this unit line is frail, with low HP and no melee armor, and they cannot attack units that get too close. This is the trade-off for their raw damage.
- Long-Range Fighter: More than archers. They have a greater range, which increases when upgraded to Onagers. Unlike archers, the Mangonel line has a minimum range beneath which they cannot attack a unit.
- Mundane Utility: The Forgotten allows them to attack and destroy trees, making them extra useful on maps with lots of trees since they can cut a path to sneak around to an enemy base.
- Siege Engines: They are flexible siege units whose range and damage make them effective against buildings and units.
- Some Dexterity Required: Friendly units are not safe from the Mangonel line's vast area of effect, so players using them must aim their shots carefully to avoid damaging their own units.
Scorpion Line
Scorpion/Heavy Scorpion
- Achilles' Heel: Like Mangonels, Scorpions are highly vulnerable to cavalry, who can easily take advantage of their slow speed, slow projectiles and minimum range.
- Expy: Of the Ballista line from the original game, acting as a siege unit that fires bolts meant to kill infantry.
- Long-Range Fighter: Like the Mangonel line, they attack from a distance and cannot attack enemies that get too close.
- One-Hit Polykill: They deal damage in a line, which, depending on the formations of the enemy, can be devastating.
Bombard Cannon line
Bombard Cannon/Houfnice
The Bohemians have an unique upgrade, the Houfnice, that increases their attacks and grants them area of effect damage.
- Awesome, yet Impractical: In the base game. They must be unlocked by an expensive tech on top of the cost of researching Chemistry. Between this, their high cost, and low HP, they are not considered worth using before getting buffed in later expansions.
- Balance Buff: The Conquerors removes the need to research a technology to unlock the Bombard Cannons, increases their HP, gives them bonus damage against siege weapons, and increases the speed of their projectiles.
- BFG: The Houfnice makes the bombard bigger and, unlike the standard bombard, it can also be used to attack large groups of enemies.
- Glass Cannon: They have high base damage and heavy bonus damage against many different targets but have low HP for an Imperial Age unit—bonus points for being actual cannons.
- Long-Range Fighter: Bombard Cannons have a greater range than most buildings, though at a cost; they have a very wide minimum range where they cannot attack.
- Siege Engines: The Bombard Cannon outranges almost all defensive structures and deal massive damage to enemy buildings.
Siege Tower
- Ascended Extra: Previously a Campaign-exclusive unit in The Forgotten, it was made into a trainable unit in The African Kingdoms. It lost its ability to shower the enemy with arrows, though.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The only way to unload units on the other side of a wall is by instructing it to "attack" a wall. The regular unload method won't work since it'll drop the units around your Tower.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: The unit exists for a very specific purpose: to unload units on the other side of a wall. Therefore, if your enemy is playing as Cumans or Goths (who lack walls) or doesn't use walls, you're only wasting your resources. Furthermore, it needs space for landing, which your enemy can deny by either reinforcing their own walls, or constructing buildings near it.
Armored Elephant line
Armored Elephant/Siege Elephant
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Dravidian Armored/Siege Elephants get the armor-ignoring attack benefits of "Wootz Steel".
- Heavily Armored Mook: Zigzagged. Their pierce armor is only exceeded by the Battering Rams that they replace (which is nonetheless sufficient for them to shrug off arrow fire). And alongside Battering Rams, Armored Elephants are one of the few units with negative melee armor, though unlike Rams this can be mitigated by Blacksmith technologies.
- Informed Equipment: Despite their name and the very visible armour on their in-game model, Armored Elephants actually start with negative melee armor.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: The four South Asian civilisations are the only ones in the game to lack access to the Battering Ram line. Instead, the role of close-ranged building demolishers is fulfilled by Armored Elephants, which have a few key differences with Battering Rams:
- Armored Elephants cost food, while Battering Rams cost wood. This is notable, as food is harder to mass than wood, due to many units and technologies requiring food to purchase.
- Armored Elephants are classified as a cavalry unit, instead of a siege unit. While it makes them vulnerable to anti-Elephant and cavalry units and Monks, it means that they benefit from unit and cavalry upgrades, like Bloodlines and Blacksmith upgrades, and can be healed by monks and castles. Battering Rams have to be repaired, which costs resources and the villager's time, and can only be converted by monks with Redemption researched, which is not available to some civilizations.
- Battering Rams are completely useless against anything organic due to their negative melee armor, low damage and slow attack speed. Armored Elephants are not, since they deal trample damage and benefit from Blacksmith upgrades that increases their damage and armor.
- Unlike Rams, Armored Elephants cannot transport infantry to increase their own movement speed and damage while protecting the units being transported.
- Necessary Drawback: Dravidian Armored/Siege Elephants get Regenerating Health and Armor-Piercing Attack bonuses via their unique techs at the expense of lacking Bloodlines, Husbandry, Siege Engineers, and Plate Barding Armor.
- Regenerating Health: Dravidian Armored/Siege Elephants get the health regeneration rate (20 HP/s) benefits of Medical Corps.
- War Elephants: These elephants have been taught to batter fortifications, serving the same battlefield role as the battering rams that were possibly never used at all in India.
Monastery units
Monk
- Artistic License – Religion: Non-American monks all appear as Catholic monks, even for non-Catholic civilizations. While models for Buddhist and Muslim monks exist in the resources, they were never implemented.
- Awesome, yet Impractical: Converting enemy units is this for most Civilizations. Stealing enemy units and adding them to your side sounds useful, especially if it's something expensive like a Paladin or a Siege Onager. The problem is that the ability takes a very long time to work, meaning the Monks will likely die before finishing, especially if the enemy brings archers or Light Calvary, since they can quickly kill Monks. On top of all this, late in the game, some technologies make units resistant to conversion. Civilizations with bonuses for Monks can avert this by using a rush of Monks before the enemy researches Monk resistant technologies.
- Boring, but Practical: The Monks' other abilities. Healing is not common in the game, so it's helpful to have units that can heal expensive ones. While collecting all relics can allow the player to win instantly, the endless supply of gold they provide is usually good enough of a reason to build a Monastery and train Monks.
- Discard and Draw: The Bohemians's Hussite Reforms unique tech exchanges the monks' gold cost with a food cost, turning them into trash units.
- Enemy Exchange Program: One of their two main functions, being able to convert units, their effectivity increasing when done in groups.
- Instant-Win Condition: Collecting all available Relics on a map in a standard game will start a 200-year timer that counts down to the victory of the player holding them.
- Mook Medic: Monks can heal friendly units.
- Necessary Drawback: Non-Italian Archery-based civilizations don't benefit from Redemption.
- Squishy Wizard: Monks, the closest thing there is to 'wizards' in the game, cannot attack, only have slightly more HP than Villagers, and benefit from no armor upgrades. If not protected, they die very quickly.
- Weaksauce Weakness:
- Ranged units can make mince meat of them.
- The Scout/Light Cavalry line is tailor-made to take them down. They have both a 4x resistance to conversion and attack bonus against them.
Market units
Trade Cart
- Art Evolution: Trade Carts used to all look the same in The Age of Kings, with The Conquerors introducing a horseless variation for the American civilizations to account for their lack of draft animals. A later update to the Definitive Edition continued this trend, giving civilizations unique skins for the Trade Cart based on their cultural group; for example, the European civilizations retained the horse-drawn variation, while East/Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern/South Asian, and African civilizations all gained variations with different draft animals.
- Artistic License – History: Trade Carts used by American civilisations have wheels, even though in real life pre-Columbian America had no wheeled vehicles at all.
- Boring Yet Practical: Trade Carts are not fighters and die quickly if attacked. However, they still provide a boost to their player's economy.
- Fragile Speedster: With a meager 70 HP, it cannot resist a lot of attacks. The "Caravan" upgrade make up for this by increasing its speed. Furthermore, the Hindustanis and Persians have the unique Caravanserai building that allows them to gather quite a lot of speed and regenerate HP.
- Non-Action Guy: As their role is trading, they cannot fight.
- Worker Unit: The Trade Cart has no combat capacities whatsoever and instead travels between Markets, gathering gold in the process (and a little food, if the team has a Bengali player).
Castle non-unique units
Trebuchet
- Anti-Structure: Trebuchets have the highest attack in the game, with a base attack almost as high as a Siege Ram with its bonus damage. Their bonus damage to structures more than doubles this already significant damage.
- Damage Is Fire: Trebuchets, like buildings, catch fire when damaged.
- Dual Mode Unit: Trebuchets switch between their packed form to move and unpacked form to attack. Switching takes a little over ten seconds, so it should not be done carelessly.
- Long-Range Fighter: Trebuchets have the longest range in the game. While their minimum range isn't as bad as Bombard Cannons since they cannot move while unpacked and it takes time for them to switch between their packed and unpacked forms, they are even worse at retreating than other already slow-moving siege units, so they are especially vulnerable if an enemy gets close.
- Mighty Glacier: Trebuchets are slow, and since they have to be packed to move, they are the least mobile siege units. They also have the highest base attack in the game, with a further bonus against buildings.
- Siege Engines: Massive catapults that deal heavy damage to buildings.
Petard
- Awesome, but Impractical: Petards deal heavy damage per attack, and their bonus damage against buildings is the highest in the game. Sadly, they die laughably easily. Even with their high damage, the cost of creating enough Petards to destroy anything besides siege units (which they also get bonus damage against) and Wonders is actually greater than the resources used to create the target in question.
- Crippling Over Specialization: Petards deal massive damage to buildings and have respectable damage against siege units. However, most units that Petards do not do bonus damage against will survive their attacks. Without that bonus damage, the number of Petards it takes to destroy a unit costs more resources than the unit in question.
- Suicide Attack: They die once used against an unit or a building.
Dock units
Fishing Ship
- Worker Unit: Resource gatherers that only gather food from sources on water. While they only collect food, they do so faster than Villagers and can harvest from deep-water fish that are out of Villagers' reach.
Transport Ship
- Boring Yet Practical: These transports cannot fight, but are the only way to get units across water maps.
- Clown Car: The model for the Transport Ships are far too small to fit the number of units they are supposed to, especially the elephants, which are almost as big as the ships.
- Defenseless Transports: Transport Ships cannot attack and must be protected, because if they are destroyed, all units they carry die.
Trade Cog
- Boring Yet Practical: Trade Cogs cannot fight, but they allow their controlling player to keep their gold supply from running out.
- Fragile Speedster: They have 80 HP, so they're quite vulnerable to attacks. To make up for this, they benefit from the speed boosts of Caravan and Dry Dock (with Berber Cogs also benefitting from an additional 10% boost and making them the fastest unit of the game).
- Worker Unit: Has the same function as the Trade Cart, but via water and with Docks rather than Markets.
Galley Line
Galley/War Galley/Galleon
- Cool Boat: These ships are more durable than most land units, even the basic Galleys, and have decent range and attack while benefiting from archer upgrades that improve range and damage.
- Zerg Rush: Galley Line units are cheap, and when built in large numbers in the Feudal Age, it means their controlling player will have a lot of their upgraded version.
Fire Ship Line
Fire Galley/Fire Ship/Fast Fire Ship
- Crippling Overspecialization: Unlike the Galley Line, which can attack shore targets once their range is upgraded, the short range of the Fire Ship Line means they are only suitable for attacking targets on the water.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: These ships spew fire at the enemy, providing them with much higher DPS than the Galley Line and allowing them to defeat them in slugfests with equal resources, assuming the Galley Line ships aren't microed to take advantage of their greater range.
Demolition Ship Line
Demolition Raft/Demolition Ship/Heavy Demolition Ship
- Crippling Overspecialization: Like the Fire Ship Line, these ships are useless against targets on land.
- Glass Cannon: These are the fastest warships and have the greatest damage of all ships, but the least health. Even the Heavy Demolition Ships only have as much HP as Fishing Ships.
- Herd-Hitting Attack: When these ships explode, they damage everything around them.
- Molotov Truck: Demolition Ships are filled with explosives and are meant to blow up in the face of other targets on the sea. Even if sunk by the enemy, they still explode and deal full damage.
Cannon Galleon Line
Cannon Galleon/Elite Cannon Galleon
- Balance Buff: In the base game, the Cannon Galleon, like other gunpowder units, has a technology that needs to be bought before they can be built. Lords of the West removed this requirement.
- Crippling Overspecialization: These ships excel at dealing with structures thanks to their damage and long range. Since they fire a Painfully Slow Projectile, they are terrible against units that can easily dodge their projectiles. The exception is with the Spanish, as their ships have faster and more accurate projectiles.
- Long-Range Fighter: They have the longest range of all ships by a wide margin, outranging any structures they may fire at on shore.
Dromon
Dromon
- Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: They're a replacement for the Cannon Galleon for certain civs, the Cannon Galleon being a naval gunpowder unit.
- Expy: It's a Mangonel but as a naval unit.
- Siege Engines: The Dromon, a ship mounted with an on-board catapult, can attack from very far away (though less so than the Cannon Galleon) and deals bonus damage to buildings.
