Arbalester

"Stronger than Crosbowman. Quick and light."

- Age of Empires II description

The Arbalest is an archer unit in Age of Empires II that can be trained at the Archery Range once the Imperial Age is reached. It is the final tier in the Archer line.

Tactics
Arbalests work better in large groups as they can fire arrow volleys at the opponents' units. Arbalests are very good at slowing down massed infantry, as well as inflicting severe damage. They are vulnerable to cavalry as they can close the distance with the fragile Arbalest before taking too much damage. As such they should be deployed with an escort.

Pairing Arbalests with Halberdiers works especially well since the Halberdier can cover the Arbalest's main weakness that is cavalry. Pairing the Arbalest with other melee units can also protect them from siege units.

If playing defensively, Arbalests can become a good tool to protect a walled area as they can attack enemy units from behind the Wall at a relatively safe distance, even protecting themselves from melee cavalry. However, they do almost no damage to Rams.

Civilization bonuses

 * Aztecs: Arbalests are created 15% faster.
 * Britons: Arbalests have +2 range.
 * Chinese: Technologies that benefit Arbalests are 20% cheaper.
 * Ethiopians: Arbalests fire faster.
 * Mayans: Arbalests are 30% cheaper.
 * Portuguese: Arbalests cost 15% less gold.
 * Vietnamese: Arbalests have +20% hit points. Conscription is free.

Team bonuses

 * A team containing Berbers: With Kasbah researched, researching Conscription is 25% faster.
 * A team containing Britons: Arbalests are created 20% faster. Researching Thumb Ring is 20% faster.
 * A team containing Magyars: Arbalests have +2 LOS.
 * A team containing Malians: Researching Chemistry and Ballistics is 80% faster.
 * A team containing Saracens: Arbalests have +1 attack against buildings.
 * A team containing Teutons: Arbalests are more resistant to conversion.

The Conquerors

 * Arbalests receive an attack bonus of +3 against Spearmen.
 * Heresy introduced.
 * Thumb Ring introduced.
 * Britons: Yeomen introduced.

The Forgotten

 * Indians: Can train Arbalests.
 * Mayans: Obsidian Arrows introduced.

The African Kingdoms

 * Italians: Pavise now affects Arbalests.

Rise of the Rajas

 * Indians: With patch 5.5, the Arbalest was removed from their technology tree.

Trivia

 * In terms of wood, the units from the Archer line are the cheapest archers in the game.
 * The Archer line units are the only common archer units that don't have any base melee armor nor pierce armor.
 * In pre-release versions of Age of Empires II, Archers and Crossbowmen were two separate lines. Archers were trash units that were cheap, fast firing, inaccurate, and weak, and consisted of the Archer itself, and the Composite Archer. Crossbowmen were expensive, costed wood and gold, slower firing, more accurate, and gave a high damage output. Arbalests were the upgrade of the Crossbowman and originally called "Advanced Heavy Crossbowmen".

History
"The arbalest was an advanced crossbow made of steel. The greater tensile strength of steel gave the weapon greater power."

Arbalests were a particularly heavy and powerful type of crossbow developed in the mid-to-late Middle Ages. The naming this class of soldier an "Arbalest" is incorrect since the word denotes the weapon instead of the wielder. It would be more correctly referred to with the name "Arbalist", which refers to a person that shoots the crossbow.