Religious leader and healer with a Stomp area attack that can stun Treasure guardians. Explores, fights, and builds Town Centers and Trading Posts.
”
—In-game description
The Brahmin is a melee cavalryMonk in Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties that is unique to the Indians. It explores uncharted areas of the map and has some special abilities to help himself and his settlement, and can heal injured units from the start of the game. In standard random map games, the Indians start with two Brahmins; both are counted as separate units.
Brahmins have weak basic stats, but they inflict trample damage and have the Stomp ability, which gives them a chance to stun enemy units around them when attacking. They possess a higher ranged resistance than the other Monks, and due to being cavalry they have higher speed as well. Their Line of Sight is the same as the Shaolin Master, and both have less than the Sohei Archer.
The Brahmin's healing ability is very weak, a mere 4 hit points per second versus the standard rate of 10 per second for units such as Priests. This still generates significant value/second. An un-upgraded Brahmin healing an un-upgraded Sepoy generates about 2.67 resource value/second, or 1.33 resource value/second depending on how one contemplates it. Either way, it is significantly better than the resource generation of a single villager. The healing rate can be increased by Improved Healing at the Monastery.
Favorable Karma is not useful in the early game. While the Brahmins gain 60% hit points and attack and can train Axehilt the Tame Tiger, which makes collecting Treasures easier, it does not increase resource generation as much as the other Exploration Age shipments.
Favorable Karma becomes much more useful in the late game, as both the Brahmins and Axehilt get automatically upgraded with each Age. With the automatic upgrades for the Brahmins being particularly strong. Axehilt the Tame Tiger is a soft counter to light infantry, with a ×1.3 multiplier versus them. Axehilt is generally worse than Wagner the Pet White Tiger, which has the same multiplier, but has more hit points, a lower cost, and lower attack. This is because pets are generally useful for tanking in the front line, due to not having any common enemy military unit having an increased attack multiplier versus them, so they should ideally have high hit points/unit cost. However, due to train limits, Axehilt will still have utility to be made as well.
India has access to strong upgrade cards in general, though, so players may choose to include one of them instead of Favorable Karma depending on what game plan they are going for. Since both the Brahmins and Axehilt are good at tanking, the card has the most synergy with defensive play, where dragging fights out is good because of the firing of defensive structures like Castles.
Special abilities[]
Stun: Stuns a Treasure guardian from a range of 16 for 20 seconds. 60 seconds cooldown.
Stomp (passive; available in the Commerce Age*): Gives the Brahmin a 10% (20% with Crushing Force) chance to stun enemies for 0.8 seconds when attacking.
Terror Charge (passive; requires Terror Charge): Increases the speed of elephants in a radius of 24 around the Brahmin by 5% (stacks if both Brahmins are close together).
Dukkha Suffering (passive; requires Dukkha SufferingHome City Card): Reduces the speed of enemy units in a radius of 24 around the Brahmin by 5% (stacks if both Brahmins are close together).
Dukkha Suffering is similar to the Sohei Archer's Stream of Enlightenment, whereas it slows units instead of weakening them and prevents enemies from effectively fleeing when combined with the Brahmins' Stomp ability. It can also keep enemy units from chasing down and annihilating the Brahmins or the Indian army they are escorting.
Upgrades[]
The Brahmin is automatically upgraded on each Age starting from the Commerce Age.
In Act III: India, one Brahmin can be trained at Town Centers. He can heal and collect treasures like a normal Brahmin, but loses the ability to build Trading Posts and must be retrained at the Town Center if he dies.
Further statistics[]
As Brahmins are unique to the Indians, only technologies that they have access to are shown in the following table:
The Brahmin's Stomp ability is available in the Commerce Age.
History[]
“
A Brahmin is a member of India's highest priestly Hindu caste. They are the only caste that can perform Vedic sacrifice, interpret the Vedas, and preserve Vedic hymns. They are considered to be of greater spiritual purity than members of other castes. The greater Brahmin caste is divided into ten sub-castes that are regionally based, with five in the north of India and five in the south.
The Brahmin community has its root in ancient India's Vedic period, roughly from 2,500 to 600 BCE. Brahmins adhere to the acceptance of the Vedas, the oldest scriptural texts of Hinduism. They believe that the means or ways to salvation are diverse, and that God is one being, but takes countless names and forms. This single deity is the same across all cultures and languages, seeming to change to fit individual perceptions. Scholars, teachers, priests, intellectuals, scientists, and knowledge-seekers formed the Brahmin class.
”
Trivia[]
Though the Brahmin's elephant is correctly depicted as an Asian Elephant, its portrait in the History section shows an African elephant instead. The same happens with the Siege Elephant and the Wild Elephant.
The Brahmin's pop-up text when they collapse and dialogue when revived are references to the Hindu belief in reincarnation.
Like the other Monks, the Brahmin's collapsed state dialogue refers to it as dying (in this case via the euphemism of going to heaven). This makes it unusual flavor-wise for a starting hero, as they usually refer to that state as them being injured.
Unlike the other Monks, the Brahmin implies they believe they died, when they are revived in the revive dialogue line. This probably means they are the only starting hero in the game who flavor-wise believes they have died then been brought back to life when they are revived.
Dukkha Suffering is a tautological name, as Dukkha means suffering.
Stun: Stuns a Treasure guardian from a range of 16 for 20 seconds. 60 seconds cooldown.
Sikh Gurus (+50%)
Comanche Horse Breeding (+10%)
Cree Tanning (+5%)
Navajo Weaving (+5%)
Tar Kilns (+5%)
Wind Horses (-10% Rate of Fire)
Yoga (+5%)
Crushing Force (+15% hand attack)
Sudanese Quilted Armor (+10% hand resistance)
Pancerni (+10% ranged resistance)
Apache Endurance (+5%)
Comanche Mustangs (+5%)
Terror Charge (+5%)
Improved Healing (+67% healing rate)
White Tiger Training (can train Wagner the Pet White Tigers)
Carib Ambush Party (can train Carib Ambushers)
Loyal Nootka War Chief (can train Nootka War Chief)
Tupi Animal Lore (can train Buttercup the Pet Cougars)
TEAM Yongle Infrastructure
TEAM Hand Cavalry Attack
Favorable Karma
Dukkha Suffering
Dravidian Martial Arts
Elephant Combat
Tame Elephants
TEAM Shivaji's Tactics
Grazing
TEAM Inca Bridges
TEAM Knights of the Round Table
TEAM Mariachi
TEAM Kamchatka Expeditions
TEAM Fencing Instructor
TEAM Spanish Inquisition
Favorable Karma
Dukkha Suffering
TEAM Cavalry Scouts
TEAM Explorer Combat
