Cuirassier

The Veteran Cuirassier is a unique French heavy Cavalry Unit that is featured in Age of Empires III. Veteran Cuirassiers can be upgraded to Gendarme Cuirassiers in the Industrial Age, and to Imperial Gendarmes in the Imperial Age Age.

Game Info
The Cuirassier is the strongest cavalry unit besides the elephants featured in Asian Dynasties and Spanish Unction Cavalry (higher attack, lower hitpoints), as their HP can be pushed to 1150 and their attack to 66 (with Natives even higher). They can only attack in melee, but deal splash damage (2) which makes them extremely effective against any sort of unit but some Heavy Infantry or Ranged Cavalry. If combined with Voltigeurs (French Skirmishers), they form a deadly combo which is often used by French players and very hard to counter if microed correctly. Albeit their high price and population cost, they are very efficient to take down enemy cannons or skirmishers of any sort. If you use the church fast-train-cavalry technology, the Fast-Train-Cavalry card (40%) and the card that gives an extra 25% train time reduction (or Natives) they can be trained instantly. The last called card also reduces their costs to 127 food and gold.

As 80 Coureur de Bois can sustain their use for a long time their high price is made up. They are also often used in game modes such as treaty, where ressources aren't a big problem.

Counters
The best way to counter these would be the Germans as Dopplers and War Wagons can deal with them easily. Alternatives would be Portugal's Jinetes, Dutch Nassau-Hellebarders and Atztec Puma-Warriors,spanish tercio with unitcon can be deadly to curaissiers. Redcoats or other HI can work well, too, although normal Pikes or Musketeers won't have a chance. For asain civilizations Sepoy (fully upgraded) and howdahs counter well agains them. For Japan the deadly samurai and ashiguru musketeer counter well along with units shipped from the consulate if isolation is the ally for japan (exlude Shinobi). For China it can be tricky as their units have low hitpoints most of the time, chendao swords man if grouped can work well but however the qing pikeman should never be used to counter curaissiers.

But watch out, as all of the units above are very weak against Voltigeurs.

Real Info
The Cuirassiers were mounted Cavalry soldiers equipped with armour and firearms, first appearing in late 15th-century Europe. They were the successors of the medieval armoured Knights. The term is derived from cuirass, the breastplate armour which they wore.

Cuirassiers played a prominent role in the armies of Austria, Frederick the Great of Prussia and of Napoleon I of France. The latter increased the number of French Cuirassier regiments to fourteen by the end of his reign. The actual utility of this armour is questionable. Prussian cuirassiers abandoned the cuirass before the Napoleonic Wars as did the British.



A few present-day mounted cavalry units continue to use cuirasses as part of their parade equipment on formal occasions. Most however have not retained the actual title of "cuirassiers", if indeed they bore it in the first place. These are the Life Guards and Blues and Royals of the British Household Cavalry; the Coraceros de la Guardia Real of the Spanish Royal Guard (created in 1875); and the Italian Corazzieri.