Bad Neighbor is a hero Trebuchet found in the The Lion and the Demon scenario and also in the Scenario Editor in Age of Empires II. It is based on Malvoisin ("Bad Neighbor"), a French counterweight trebuchet used in the 1189-1191 Siege of Acre during the Third Crusade.
Bad Neighbor has some peculiarities compared to other Trebuchets. Even unpacked, its armor remains 2/8 unlike in regular Trebuchets, which have 1/150 in the unpacked form. Unpacked, the unit has 300 HP; packed, the hit points drop to 150 (the actual number is halved, so if e.g. a Bad Neighbor with 233 HP packs itself, it has 116 HP in the packed form) and all hero qualities are lost. The packed form has Armor class: Siege weapon, whereas the unpacked version has the Hero unit armor class.
As siege units, both versions can be repaired by Villagers. The unpacked form has only 8 pierce armor, and does not have Armor class: Ram.
Packed Bad Neighbor has some statistics different from unpacked form that do not actually matter:
- Attack of 1 melee
- Rate of Fire of 1
- Minimum Range of 0
Campaign appearances[]
Saladin[]
- The Lion and the Demon: God's Own Sling and Bad Neighbor are utilized by English troops under Richard the Lionheart.
Trivia[]
- In The Lion and the Demon, the Bad Neighbor is controlled by English King Richard the Lionheart, rather than by King Philip II Augustus of France as in reality.
- According to some versions, the Bad Neighbor had a informal "duel" during the siege with a Saracen trebuchet called Malcousin ("Bad Relation"), and was damaged repeatedly by its projectiles.
- Yet according to other versions, Malvoisin and Malcousin were actually one and the same (an engine built under the first name and rechristened during the siege with the other) and not a counterweight trebuchet at all but an unusually large Siege Tower.
- The range of 20 (shared with its companion God's Own Sling, and the Warwolf Trebuchet) is unparalleled in the game.
- The unit costs 250 wood, 125 gold in unpacked form and 200 wood, 200 gold in packed form. As such, when packing/unpacking, the score can change in isolation. It is better to repair it in the unpacked form, and destroy it in the packed form.
Changelog[]
The Conquerors[]
- As the packed version is not considered a hero unit, it is not affected by the new bonuses to heroes (immunity to conversions and hit point regeneration). Previously, while not a hero, there was no gameplay implication to this oversight.
Definitive Edition[]
- In a patch[Which?], the packed form was made a hero unit, granting it immunity to conversions and hit point regeneration. However, it did not gain the Hero unit armor class.
