Crossbowman (Age of Empires III)

"Archaic archer. Good against infantry."

- In-game description

The Crossbowman is an archer in Age of Empires III that can be trained at Barracks, Fort, and Galleon.

Crossbowmen are available to European civilizations (including the campaign-only Knights of St. John and John Black's Mercenaries) except British (who have the Longbowman instead), Dutch, Ottomans, Russians and United States (in the Act III: Steel campaign).

Overview
Crossbowmen are light infantry units that use crossbows in battle. They are counter infantry units that are useful for attacking heavy infantry such as Musketeers, but are easily defeated by melee cavalry and Artillery. They are similar in many ways to Skirmishers. Although the Crossbowmen might be out-ranged by their Skirmisher counterparts, they are cheaper and are trainable earlier in the game. The exceptions to this rule reside in the Dutch, who can train Skirmishers in the Colonial Age and the French through the use of TEAM Early Skirmishers (allowing them and allies to train skirmishers in the Colonial Age).

Spanish players have the option of being able to almost instantly train (2.7 seconds) Crossbowmen and Pikemen in the Colonial Age, due to the TEAM Archaic Soldier Training and Fencing School cards, and can train instantly if it is also used with the Standing Army improvement.

Further statistics
As the Crossbowman can only be trained by French, Germans, Portuguese and Spanish, only improvements available to them (including the campaign-only John Black's Mercenaries and Knights of St. John, and native improvements) are listed here.

Home City Cards
As the Crossbowman is exclusive to French, Germans, Portuguese and Spanish, only other civilizations' TEAM cards that affects them are listed here. {| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width: 100%;" ! sab="1148" | Click for a list of Home City Cards related to the Crossbowman Green : TEAM Shipment that is sent to each player in a team
 * - sab="1147"
 * - sab="1149"
 * sab="1150" |

Europeans

 * The 8 Crossbowmen and 10 Crossbowmen cards are not available to the Spanish.
 * The 24 Crossbowmen card is not available to Germans and Portuguese.

Spanish

 * }

Trivia

 * The Dutch originally had the Crossbowman, as there are unused voice files for Dutch Crossbowmen in the game files.

History
"Handheld crossbows began to appear in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Crossbowmen were attractive to military leaders because they took much less time to train than archers using bows. Firearms eclipsed Crossbows by the end of the sixteenth century. Europeans, chiefly the Spanish, included crossbows amongst the muskets and cannon they brought to the New World. Cortes arrived with more than two dozen crossbows and less than ten muskets. Columbus' crew had crossbows when they landed in the West Indies. When the original stockpile of munitions ran out it was difficult or impossible to make or trade for more. Explorers had to be very careful with their limited supply."