Teutonic Knight

The Teutonic Knight is a unique Infantry Unit of the Teutons featured in Age of Empires II available at the Castle once Castle Age is reached. Teutonic Knights can be upgraded to Elite Teutonic Knights once Imperial Age is reached.

Tactics
The Teutonic Knight is the most powerful infantry unit in the game. When upgraded to Elite Teutonic Knight during the Imperial Age, they have 100 hit points, 17 melee attack, 10 melee armor and 2 pierce armor, base. With all the upgrades from the Blacksmith, Elite Teutonic Knights boast 100 HP, 21 attack, 13 armor and 6 pierce armor. They can defeat fully upgraded Paladins more effectively than fully upgraded Pikemen, but are about three times as expensive and cost gold.

Teutonic Knights are tough enough to beat every melee unit in the game, with the exception of the Persians' War Elephant and Byzantines's Cataphract. However, they are extremely slow, due to the large amount of armor they wear, and so are at a disadvantage to ranged units and artillery. They are also vulnerable to double-teaming from infantry who have bonuses against them, such as Japanese Samurai or Aztec Jaguar Warriors, both of which can defeat Teutonic Knights en masse, even though one-on-one they're beaten. Due to this, distractions like Knights or Champions can work in the favor of the Teutonic Knight

Teutonic Knights have an attack bonus vs. buildings and Eagle Warriors. Due to their slow speed, on maps with plenty of waterways it may be effective to transport them to some areas using transport ships. As a massive downside to their powerful attack, their are the slowest non-siege unit (even slower than an packed Trebuchet) in game making them extremely vulnerable to Monks, Archers and area-of-effect attacks, so it is usually wisest to place them in staggered formation to compensate when battling siege weapons; garrisoning them in Battering Rams can also be done, since while they are inside the rams they will have a faster speed and pierce armor. This point cannot be stressed enough, they are slow and will easily be felled by archers and will take a very long period of time to reach targets.

If the enemy has assembled a large force of Teutonic Knights, the best strategy is to pelt them with arrows, and do not engage them with any sort of infantry or cavalry. The player must just throw up makeshift walls and let the archers pincushion them. The Knights slow speed will prevent any sort of threat to the archers. Using cavalry archers works well against them since they can just perform hit and run tactics efficiently, but foot archers will work just the same.

Teutonic Knights may be exceptionally good at hand-to-combat but they're easily defeated by siege and ranged units, thus they don't shine when used offensively. When besieging another player, the Teutonic main force should consist of Paladins, Hand Cannoneers, Monks, some Trebuchets and/or Bombard Cannons - and optionally a few Rams to protect the slow Teutonic Knights.

The Forgotten Changes

 * Teutonic Knight (non-elite) +10 HP

History
"At the height of the Christian Crusades into the Holy Land, German crusaders formed an order of warrior monks called the Teutonic Knights. This order gave up crusading in the Eastern Mediterranean and turned its attention to Eastern Europe. Through conquest they brought Christianity to the Baltic region and forests of what became Prussia. They built castles from which they could control the surrounding countryside. The Teutonic Knights were committed warriors who carved out an empire that lasted into the twentieth century."

- Age of Empires II manual