Musketeer

"Heavy ranged infantry. Armed with a bayonet to beat cavalry."

- In-game description

The Musketeer is a standard infantry unit of many European civilizations in Age of Empires III.

Overview
Musketeers are infantry units armed with a smoothbore musket to fight other infantry, and a bayonet to fight cavalry in close-quarter combat. They fire short-ranged attacks at a slower rate compared to archer units such as the Longbowman. Musketeers are vulnerable against massed artillery and light infantry.

Russian Musketeers are automatically trained in a block of five units from Blockhouses.

The Dutch and the Germans cannot train Musketeers, but the former can ship 30 Guard Musketeers (as Stadhouders) for from their Church with the Religious Freedom Home City Card.

In The WarChiefs, Spanish Musketeers becomes the most damaging, population-effective of all Musketeers thanks to the Unction effect.

Further statistics
As the Musketeer cannot be trained by Dutch, Germans and Ottomans, only improvements available to other European civilizations are listed here.

Home City Cards
As the Musketeer is exclusive to European civilizations except Dutch, Germans and Ottomans, only other civilizations' TEAM cards that affects them are listed here. {| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width: 100%;" ! sab="1148" | Click for a list of Home City Cards related to the Musketeer
 * - sab="1147"
 * - sab="1149"
 * sab="1150" |
 * Green : TEAM Shipment that is sent to each player in a team
 * Purple : Shipment that can be sent an INFINITE number of times

Spanish

 * }

Outlaw Musketeer
The Outlaw Musketeer is a treasure guardian variant of the Musketeer which is usually featured in abundant treasures, but rarely. It is one of the few Treasure Guardians with a damage multiplier against specific unit types. Overall, the Outlaw Musketeer is better than the normal Musketeers and should be considered for taming.

Trivia

 * The Musketeer has 4 visual upgrades in total, although the first one is unused in-game.
 * The Germans and Dutch can train Musketeers in the beta. Their Musketeers' unused voice files still exist in the Scenario Editor and game files.
 * The Russians were not able to build Musketeers in the beta.
 * John Black's Mercenaries, Spanish, and United States are the only civilizations with Musketeers that lacks Home City Cards which improves them (aside of the Advanced Arsenal card).
 * British Royal Guard Musketeers are named after the Redcoat soldiers.
 * Portuguese Royal Guard Musketeers' name, Guerreiro, means "Warrior" in Portuguese.
 * Dutch Musketeers are named after the Stadtholders.

History
"Musketeers were infantry soldiers who stood in ranks two and three men deep, taking turns firing while other ranks reloaded. Musketeers were drilled and disciplined to stand as close as 80 yards away from an enemy firing at them. Musket balls ranged from about a half inch in diameter to three-quarters of an inch in diameter. Until long guns with rifled barrels that could be fired more than once every two minutes were developed, muskets were the ranged weapon of choice for infantry. Muskets had a relatively short range and were wildly inaccurate. Musketeers fought a lot like longbowmen, firing volley after volley in the direction of the enemy with no specific target. The barrage of lead was bound to hit something. A competent musketeer could fire three shots in a minute - four times slower than a longbow and twice as fast as an early rifle."