War Wagon (Age of Empires III)

The War Wagon is a unique unit of the Germans featured in Age of Empires III, available at the Stable starting at the Fortress Age.

Overview
The War Wagon is a horse-drawn wagon that is outfitted with two light cannons. The War Wagon functions as the German mounted counter-cavalry (Light Cavalry) unit. Just as expensive as the French Cuirassier, the War Wagon has strong single target ranged damage with medium range, longer than a Musketeer.

The War Wagon is a unique light cavalry unit that has high siege damage making it powerful against buildings, and have a melee resistance multiplier that most other cavalry do not have. War Wagons enjoy the benefit of a 3x damage multiplier against cavalry, which allows them to shred cavalry intense armies with ease. Fully upgraded Imperial War Wagons can easily shred Imperial melee cavalry in 3-4 hits and take down Mamelukes and Imperial Gendarmes in 6-7 hits.

There are two unique traits that War Wagons have compared to other ranged cavalry. One is their unusually high health (an unupgraded Imperial War Wagon has 900 hitpoints, while something like an Imperial Dragoon has half of that), which allows them to tank reasonably well against most sources of damage. Even though heavy infantry have bonus melee multipliers on them, the War Wagon's high health and 20% melee resistance can reduce the damage they deal onto them. The other unique trait is their extremely high ranged damage. An unupgraded Imperial War Wagon deals 79 ranged damage, and when fully upgraded (not including Native technology as it is not present in all maps), deals 88 damage instead. This allows War Wagons to function as ranged infantry just as well without suffering from the low health they usually have, as their damage is similar to that of Imperial Skirmishers, who are good against heavy infantry.

However, the War Wagon possess somewhat slow speed and attacks slowly, as they shoot off light cannons and not from pistols. This can make it rather hard to perform hit-and-run attacks with them. War Wagons are also expensive, costing 150 food and coin, in addition to occupying 3 population slots. This will severely limit the variety in the player's armies if they train a large number of War Wagons for units to help defend them from enemy rushes.

Upgrades
The War Wagon benefits from the Ranged Cavalry Caracole upgrade found in the Arsenal once the Fortress Age is reached. This Technology increases the attack of War Wagons by 4 points, the siege attack by 3 points and upgrades their range by 2 to 18. The range in melee mode (advanced formations) stays at 3 and does not get upgraded. War Wagons are already at Veteran level when they become available in the Fortress Age and can be upgraded further later on.

Guard War Wagon
The Guard War Wagon is the first upgrade for the War Wagon at the Stable that is available for and  once the Industrial Age is reached and increases attack and hit points.


 * Hit Points: 650
 * Ranged Attack: 54
 * Siege Attack: 39

Imperial War Wagon
The Imperial War Wagon is the final and most powerful upgrade for the War Wagon at the Stable that is available for and  once the Imperial Age is reached and further increases attack and hitpoints. Notice that the hit points and the attack increase by 80% compared to the original War Wagon.


 * Hit Points: 900
 * Ranged Attack: 75
 * Siege Attack: 54

Shipments
This is a list of shipments that benefit War Wagons in any way.

{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:100%; margin-bottom:0px; margin-top:1px;" ! sab="1148" | Click for a list of War Wagon related home city cards
 * - sab="1147"
 * - sab="1149"
 * sab="1150" |

Germans

 * }

History
"These fortified carts were used to great effect by the infantry armies of the Hussites, followers of the Czech religious reformer John Huss (Jan Hus), who was excommunicated and burned at the stake early in the fifteenth century. John Zizka lead the Hussite forces against the armies of Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund. His army was largely comprised of peasants, and Zizka developed new tactics to suit the farm-grown sensibilites of his untrained soldiers. They armored farm wagons, used flails and pitchforks, and a number of howitzer artillery pieces. The armored wagons moved in trains and would circle up, forming an overlapping impromptu fortress from which they would fire their artillery baiting opposing armies into a response. The wagons could also be used in offense, charging into ranks of soldiers and knights, loaded with men firing into the groups of knights and infantry. When Zizka died, his skin was made into a drum used to summon Hussites to battle. The Hussite revolution, however, was eventually put down."