Mercenaries (Age of Empires III)

Mercenaries are specialist units, that can only be shipped from the Home City (see harbour tab). Unlike standard unit shipments (such as military and villagers), mercs cost large amounts of gold (usually ~100 gold per unit), 1000g for Fortress Age shipments of a large squad, and 2000g for Industrial Age shipments of small armies of varied units. The mercenaries themselves are tougher versions of their normal counterparts, usually having up to 4x the hp/attack of their weakling (by comparison) recruits, allowing them to be useful and superior right up into the Imperial Age.

Examples of mercenaries include Swiss Pikemen, which have greatly increased hp and 22 attack compared to the normal 8, and hackapells, which do not have a significant survivabilty bonus compared to normal cavalry but the 121 (!) attack (versus the normal hussar's 36 at Fortress age, when you can get them) tends to make up for this somewhat. Also, although not technically a mercenary, the shipments provided by the 'Church Upgrade' cards function similarly to mercenaries, such as Kalmuks (Dragoons) for the Russians and L'Armée D'Imperial (27 Grenadiers by age 4 if you can keep them all alive) shipments for the French, as you pay a load of resources and can only order them once, although this doesn't use up a shipment card.

Mercenaries (Base unit):


 * Privateer (Caravel)
 * Swiss Pikemen(Pikeman)
 * Landsknecht (Doppelsoldner)
 * Highlander (Musketeer)
 * Jaeger (Skirmisher)
 * Hackapell (Hussar)
 * Manchu (Cavalry Archer)
 * Black Rider (Dragoon)


 * Stradiots (I forget-haven't bought them)
 * Barbary Corsairs (Rodeleros, I think)
 * Ronin (sorry, haven't bought these either)