Blockhouse

The Blockhouse is a unique military building featured in Age of Empires III that provides basic infantry units for the Russian civilization. It trains Strelets, Halberdiers, and Musketeers.

Overview
The Blockhouse bears similarity to the basic European Barracks as the player is able to train and upgrade units. However, in addition, Blockhouses are able to defend themselves similar to Outposts. The Blockhouse also provides 5 population room for Russian units. Blockhouses are resource-friendly, with players only having to pay wood for a fraction of the cost required for a Barracks and Outpost. Some civilizations can use specific TEAM cards to reduce the cost even further. TEAM Cheap Barracks sent by the Spanish reduces the cost by 15% (250 becomes 212), TEAM Art of War sent by the Chinese will reduce it by 10% (stacked with TEAM Cheap Barracks this reduces the cost by 25% to 187 wood).

Those same cards (stacked) can make Spanish barracks as cheap as 40 Wood and Chinese War Academies as cheap as 90 Wood, drastically reducing the economic advantage of blockhouses. Because the Blockhouse serves a dual role, as they are destroyed the player loses both defense and the ability to train troops simultaneously, this can sometimes lead to Russians being overwhelmed easily during an attack involving siege units.

In The Asian Dynasties campaign, the Indians can build both Castles and Blockhouses due to the fact the Consulate allows them to have Russian allies.

In Random Map games, the Chinese can employ Russian allies through the Consulate and thus Blockhouses. Once the Blockhouse is shipped, the Chinese player can build them if they have access to Settlers and/or Native American Villagers.

Related shipments
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:100%; margin-bottom:0px; margin-top:1px;" ! sab="1148" | Click for a list of Blockhouse-related Home City cards
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Russians

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History
"A blockhouse is a military building that is often fortified for protection. A blockhouse is similar to a fort, but while a fort has multiple buildings, a blockhouse has only one structure. In the New World, blockhouses were used for defense on the frontier. Russian blockhouses built along the west coast were hexagonal in shape and usually had multiple stories."