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This article is about the unit in Age of Empires IV. For the unit in Age of Empires II, see Battering Ram (Age of Empires II). |
| “ | Durable infantry transport effective against buildings and walls. | ” |
| —Age of Empires IV description | ||
The Battering Ram is a melee siege engine in Age of Empires IV. It is unique in being able to be built by infantry units in the field as well as trained at Siege Workshops for all civilizations. It can only attack buildings and can garrison infantry units for their protections as well.
The Byzantines and Macedonian Dynasty do not have access to Battering Rams. Instead, they get Cheirosiphons.
Tactics[]
The Battering Ram is the most basic anti-building siege engine in the game, available one Age earlier than any others, and is an important piece of the Feudal Age 'all-in' strategy. Nearly impervious to ranged damage, a Battering Ram is critical to take out a Capitol Town Center in the Feudal Age, since most other units do not have much armor by then and will be quickly cut down by a garrisoned Town Center.
The best time to start building Battering Rams is when an opponent is hemmed in their base by Feudal aggression as an attempt to break through defenses or take out production or economic buildings within range of a Town Center. Because they are a significant investment at this point in the game, requiring both a 200 wood cost each and Siege Engineering, they should not be created until there is enough supplementary army production to protect them, otherwise it will be easy for enemy villagers or military units to quickly jump out of a Town Center, destroy the ram, and jump back in without suffering any significant losses. For this reason, it is also common to see Battering Rams sent in to attack a Town Center two- or even three-at-a-time, since sending only one will usually see it destroyed before doing significant damage. Furthermore, the Holy Roman Empire can out-repair a single Battering Ram indefinitely using Emergency Repairs. And although the Town Center provides a tempting target, it can often be more beneficial to take out surrounding buildings such as houses and production buildings to stop enemy unit or villager production while building up a military force large enough to dive the Town Center.
The Battering Ram falls off in effectiveness in the Castle Age due to several reasons. The presence of stronger melee units to more quickly take it out, combined with its lack of range and poor DPS compared to other Siege engines hold it back. They are especially difficult to defend when attacking Keeps compared to trebuchets. However, they can be surprisingly effective in the Post-Imperial Age after researching Lightweight Beams, especially for the Rus after researching Wandering Town as well. While they do not rival Bombards in outright strength, their cheap cost, faster field build time, and 1-population cost make them much easier to mass than other siege weapons, which can be an important consideration if against the population cap. These reasons also make Battering Rams an option for the 'Landmark Snipe' strategy. If in a losing position, taking a few units to the side, building a small army of battering rams, and sending it in to the opponent's base may be enough to destroy their landmarks before the enemy can respond or reach their own landmark victory.
Further statistics[]
| Technologies | |
|---|---|
 Hit points
|
 Siege Works (+20%); Improved: (+30%,  Mongols)
|
 Regeneration
|
 Wandering Town (2 HP/s while in combat,  Rus)
|
| Attack | Wandering Town (+25%, Rus)
|
 Attack speed
|
 Lightweight Beams (+20%) Siege Crews (+25% while garrisoned  Ottomans)
|
 Movement speed
|
 Greased Axles (+15%); Improved: (+20% Mongols) Mehter Drums (+15% in formation with Mehter, Ottomans)
|
| Creation speed |  Military Academy (+33%); Improved: (+53%, Mongols) Efficient Production (+100%, requires Scholar garrisoned in the Siege Workshop,  Delhi Sultanate)
|
| Build speed | Lightweight Beams (+100%)
|
| Ability |  Siege Carpentry (Grants Structural Reinforcements ability,  Ayyubids)
|
| Civilization bonuses | |
|---|---|
| Hit points
|
 Chinese (+15% in  Ming Dynasty) Chinese (+50% from Astronomical Clocktower)
|
| Resource cost |  Knights Templar (-25% wood) Zhu Xi's Legacy (-10% in  Yuan Dynasty)
|
| Creation speed |  English (+75% from  The White Tower) Knights Templar (+15% with Kingdom of France, Siege Workshop only) Order of the Dragon (Field build time of 45 seconds)
|
| Other |  Abbasid Dynasty and Ayyubids (Available in the Dark Age) English (Available at Keeps)
|
Dialogue lines[]
- Abbasid Dynasty and Ayyubids: /Abbasid Dynasty dialogue lines
- Chinese and Zhu Xi's Legacy: /Chinese dialogue lines
- Delhi Sultanate: /Delhi Sultanate dialogue lines
- English and House of Lancaster: /English dialogue lines
- French, Jeanne d'Arc, and Knights Templar: /French dialogue lines
- Holy Roman Empire and Order of the Dragon: /Holy Roman Empire dialogue lines
- Japanese: /Japanese dialogue lines
- Malians: /Malians dialogue lines
- Mongols: /Mongols dialogue lines
- Ottomans: /Ottomans dialogue lines
- Rus: /Rus dialogue lines
Changelog[]
- Originally, Battering Rams had 3.5 movement speed, 900 hit points, and cost 3 population. With update 8324, they have 3 movement speed, 700 hit points, and cost 1 population. Season Two Update 17718 further reduced their hit points to 420. Patch 9.2.628 reduced their hit points even more to 340. Update 10.0.576 increased their hit points up to 370.
- Originally, Battering Rams had 15 ranged armor. With update 8324, this was increased to 50 ranged armor. With update 12.0.1974, their ranged armor was removed and replaced with 95% ranged resistance.
- As a bug fix in the Season One Update, Rams no longer target ships.
- Originally, Battering Rams had no special attack bonus vs Walls. With the Server-Side Patch 12973, they gain +100 attack vs Walls. With update 24916, they have +200 vs Walls. With update 12.0.1974, they have +300 vs Walls.
- Originally, Battering Rams cost 300 wood. With patch 20249, they cost 250 wood. With patch 9.2.628, they cost 200 wood.
- Originally, Battering Rams had 0.29 tiles range. With update 24916, their range was increased to 0.54 tiles.
- Since update 6.0.878, Battering Rams can be trained at the Siege Workshop and equivalent Landmarks. Lightweight Beams introduced.
- With patch 8.2.218, Battering Ram train time from Siege Workshops increased from 30 to 40 seconds. With update 10.0.576, this time was decreased to 35 seconds, and their field build time was decreased from 80 seconds to 70 seconds.
- With patch 9.2.628, Battering Rams now take +20% additional damage from melee units.
- With patch 10.1.48, the Order of the Dragon Battering Ram build time in the field was reduced from 70 seconds to 45 seconds to compensate for having fewer units to build with.
Campaign version[]
Because the original four campaigns have not been rebalanced since the release of the game, Battering Rams have the following main differences in those campaigns:
- They have 900 hit points, but only eight ranged armor, making them much more susceptible to ranged units, especially crossbowmen and gunpowder units. They also do not have any additional melee vulnerability.
- They cost 350 wood, take up 3 population space, move at 0.88 tiles per second, and do not have any attack bonus.
- They cannot be trained at the Siege Workshop, and must be built in the field.
In the The Sultans Ascend campaign, Battering Rams retain their stats from the release of that campaign. That is:
- They have 50 ranged armor instead of 95% ranged resistance.
- They deal only +200 bonus damage against walls.
Gallery[]
