Longbowman

A Longbowman is a British ranged light infantry unit that is featured in Age of Empires II and Age of Empires III.



Age of Empires II
The Longbowmen are a special unit for the Britons civilization and are available in the Castle during the Castle Age. They can be upgraded to Elite Longbowman, which has a greater base range than any other archer. In the Conquerors Expansion, a fully upgraded Elite Longbowman has 12 range, making a group of longbowmen a passable (if time-consuming) siege option: the Teutonic Castle, Korean Towers and the Turkish Bombard Tower are the only defensive structures capable of returning fire.

Age of Empires III
The Longbowmen are unique to the British so is only available to that civilization. The Longbowmen have a powerful long range and a fast rate of fire, but this makes these skilled archers more expensive. The Longbowmen are effective against enemy infantry units such as the Musketeers, but they lose to cavalry and artillery units. Like Crossbowmen and Pikemen they cannot be upgraded beyond Veteran level unless a specific Home City card is sent.

Real Info
The Longbowmen were medieval archers equipped with very tall longbows and 3 ft long arrows in battle. In the Middle Ages the Welsh and the English became famous for their very heavy, long-ranged English longbows, used to great effect in the civil wars of the period and against the Franks in the Hundred Years' War (with notable success at the battles of Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt). They also were famous for making sharpened wooden stakes used for defending against cavalry, used very effectivly during Agincourt.