Cavalry units (Age of Empires II)

Cavalry in Age of Empires II is one of the four combat forces on land, the other ones being archers, infantry, and siege weapons.

General information
Generally speaking, cavalry units are mounted units with high speed, attack, HP, and armor. They have no range and are expensive. In direct combat, they easily overpower archer, infantry, and siege units.

Note that mounted archers do in some way count as cavalry as well. For instance, they take bonus damage from anti-cavalry attacks and profit from certain cavalry technologies, such as Bloodlines. But basically they are treated as archers rather than cavalry by the game, so they are not dealt with in this article.

Regular cavalry units are trained at the Stable and become available in the Feudal Age.

Unique cavalry units are trained at the Castle with only two exceptions: Tarkans can be trained in the Stable as well after Marauders is researched, and Imperial Camels are available at the Stable only.

The trash units aside, all cavalry units cost food and gold.

Despite the many advantages the cavalry branch has, there are a few drawbacks that should be considered. Just like archers, they have a common, cheap, and easy to mass counter unit: the Pikeman. Every player frequently using cavalry is bound to meet them sooner or later. Also, cavalry units are expensive, especially in terms of gold, and a strong reliance on them can lose the game if gold runs out or supplies are cut off. And on narrow maps with lots of obstacles like cliffs or woods, cavalry units can fall prey to ranged units that can exploit their range.

Camels, Mamelukes, Kamayuks, and Genoese Crossbowmen are also very effective against cavalry units.

Still, since every unit only takes up exactly one population space, cavalry units fill these spaces effectively, especially if the population cap is set to a low value.

The Native American civilizations cannot build Stables and train cavalry units. As a replacement, they can train Eagle Warriors.

All information that follows is current as of patch 5.0.

List of cavalry units
Marked with yellow background are unique units.

Technologies
Listed below are all technologies that benefit cavalry units. Marked with yellow background are unique technologies. This list does not contain unit upgrades.

Civilizations
The Berbers, Franks, Huns, Magyars, Mongols, and Persians all are very good cavalry civilizations and rely on cavalry units. The Burmese, Indians, Malians, and Spanish are also great cavalry civilizations, though much less reliant on cavalry than the above-mentioned ones.

Civilization bonuses
The following civilizations have bonuses that specifically benefit cavalry units:
 * Berbers: Stable units are 15%/20% cheaper in the Castle/Imperial Age.
 * Byzantines: Camels are 25% cheaper.
 * Franks: Cavalry units have +20% HP.
 * Indians: Camels have +1/+1 armor.
 * Khmer: Battle Elephants are 15% faster.
 * Magyars: Scout Cavalry are 15% cheaper.
 * Malay: Battle Elephants are 30% cheaper.
 * Mongols: Scout Cavalry have +30% HP.
 * Turks: The Light Cavalry and Hussar upgrades are free.

Team bonuses
The following civilizations have bonuses that specifically benefit cavalry units:
 * Franks: Knights have +2 LOS.
 * Huns: Stables work 20% faster.
 * Indians: Camels have +5 attack against buildings.
 * Mongols: Light Cavalry and Hussars have +2 LOS.
 * Persians: Knights have +2 attack against archers.