Camel

This article is about the wild animal. For other uses of the term, see Camel (disambiguation).

Camel
Unit information
Introduced in	Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten Age of Empires: Return of Rome
Type	Animal Scout unit
Statistics
Hit points	50
Melee armor	0
Pierce armor	0
Armor class	Cavalry
Speed	1.2 1.55
Line of Sight	4 6

The Camel (called Camel (Gaia) before the Definitive Edition) is an untrainable unit that is found mostly in campaign scenarios, like the Horse and the Bactrian Camel. It is available as a scout unit in the Scenario Editor.

It is also available in the Age of Empires game mode in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Return of Rome with the same attributes.

Overview

Camels fulfill the role of Scout Cavalry or Eagle Scouts, as they have the same speed, line of sight and armor class as a regular Scout Cavalry in addition to having 5 more hit points. Unlike these scouts, however, they are unable to attack other units or profit from upgrades and don't cost any population space.

It appears certain maps like MegaRandom and can use Auto Scout. If assigned to Gaia, they will behave just like regular military units in that they switch allegiance to human players as soon as they are seen by one of their units and will never switch again, unlike herdable animals. Similarly, enemy units in aggressive stance attack Camels.

Trivia

• Before hotfix 39515, the Camel (and its functional counterparts) were of very limited use, as their ability of scouting was limited by a poor Line of Sight of only 2. These units were now changed to have the same speed, line of sight and armor class as regular Dark Age Scout Cavalry.
  • Further, in update 39284, it was made possible to load them into Transport Ships.
• Just like the Horse has the Wild Horse, and the Bactrian Camel has the Wild Bactrian Camel, the Camel has a non capturable counterpart that behaves like Deer: the Wild Camel.
• The Camel is the one-humped species also known as Dromedary (Camelus dromedarius), like the Camel Rider's mount it was edited from. All other camel riding units in the game have dromedaries as well, except the Mameluke, who rides a two-humped Bactrian Camel (C. bactrianus).
• The Domedary camel was domesticated about 4000 years ago in Arabia or East Africa, and no longer exists in the wild. Dromedary fetuses even grow two humps before the first is absorbed into the second while in the womb. Nevertheless, one-humped camels escape captivity easily and have established many feral populations in North Africa, Western Asia, and even Australia.
• A wild camel unit was planned during development of Age of Mythology, sharing model with the Camel Rider and Camel Caravan, but it was cut before release.

Gallery

Views of camels in the Definitive Edition

Views of camels in the HD Edition

The Camel's LOS is short, making it a rather ineffective scout

A ceramic figure of a pack-camel (Sui dynasty, China)

A dromedary from a 13th c. northern French bestiary