Culverin

The Culverin is a light anti-artillery and anti-ship unit featured in Age of Empires III.

Overview
The Culverin is a light artillery piece with exceptional range that is very effective against enemy artillery and ships. It is not very effective against anything else, but makes up for this fact by being extraordinarily good at its two primary functions and can protect a large area. In comparison to other units, it deals more damage versus ships than the Iroquois Light Cannon (400 vs 210 unupgraded). While it doesn't match the extended range of the Mortar or Morutaru, it is far more accurate against a moving ship.

Culverins have longer range than most artillery and do bonus damage vs. artillery and ships, though unless an opponent is building cannon or a strong navy they have little use in most games. Some strategists may want to keep a few around just in case of a ship or artillery attack, while others would consider it a waste of resources to build a unit which doesn't counter anything currently in play.

Due to their sizeable range, Culverins can adequately defend a shoreline from most ships as they have more range than all ships except Monitors and Ironclad. Ships using Offshore Support or European Cannons will not have greater range than a Culverin, they come up one point short of matching its range. When combined with the even higher anti-ship range of Outposts and Town Centers built near the water and walls along the shore (preventing troops from being unloaded), the player will be safe inside their turtle shell until Monitors are able to be produced by the enemy.

However, with limited capability for aggression, its defensive powers does not tend to see much competitive use. Due to its high cost, in a short game a player able to produce culverins would generally rather spend it on more versatile methods for dealing with enemy falconets anyway, such as cavalry. Units such as the Hussar can be repurposed on the offensive, while the Dragoon is more mobile. However, the culverin remains a useful defensive option in other game modes such as the campaigns.

Fully upgraded Culverins being influenced by the Spanish Unction aura will very rapidly (1-2 shots, 456 damage versus artillery) destroy any artillery that lacks comparable or superior technological advantages. These same Culverins are also capable of inflicting 1710 damage to ships in a single shot, making it very difficult to successfully land an invasion force directly on Spanish territory, even when transporting troops in a high hit point vessel.

Home City cards
As the Falconet is exclusive to European civilizations, only Native American and Asian civilizations' TEAM cards that affects them are listed here. {| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:100%;" ! sab="1148" | Click for a list of related Home City cards
 * - sab="1147"
 * - sab="1149"
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Portuguese

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History
"The Culverin gets its name from the Latin word for serpent - colubra - used to describe the cannon's distinctive curving handles. It was a long, heavy cannon and could fire at great range. A skilled team of gunners could use the Culverin's extreme range and precision to target specific enemy buildings or defenses."