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This article is about the unit in Age of Empires II HD: The African Kingdoms. For the unit in Age of Empires III, see Caravel (Age of Empires III). |
| “ | Portuguese unique ship that fires bolts that pierce multiple units. | ” |
| —Age of Empires II description | ||
The Caravel is the second unique unit of the Portuguese in Age of Empires II HD: The African Kingdoms. It can be trained at the Dock once the Castle Age is reached. It is a warship that fires bolts like a Scorpion that can damage multiple enemies.
Caravels can be upgraded to Elite Caravels in the Imperial Age.
Tactics[]
Caravels deal damage in a straight line with every hit, allowing them to injure and even kill clusters of units on the shoreline, or sink masses of enemy ships in naval combat.
Stat-wise, Caravels are generally superior to War Galleys in most departments except ship-to-ship damage. They will generally lose to War Galleys in one-on-one combat, and an Elite Caravel will be defeated by a Galleon, but a large fleet of them will defeat an armada of those counterparts due to the nature of their projectiles.
A Caravel is slightly more expensive than a War Galley, but it does not need to be upgraded and is available instantly once the Castle Age is reached. Building both Caravels and War Galleys/Galleons in the late game is a good idea only if the player's economy allows it, but doing so will give the player a very effective anti-ship armada at their disposal, with Elite Caravels acting as the main naval force and Galleons acting as a tank unit. However, this may be unnecessary as the Portuguese Galleons are already some of the best in the game.
Non-Elite Caravels have Line of Sight and pierce armor equal to those of the Galleon and Elite Caravels, which makes them situationally better before their Elite upgrade.
Comparison to the Galley line[]
 Caravel line
|
 Galley line
| |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | 90 wood, 34 gold | 90 wood, 24 gold |
| Creation time | 25 | 36 |
| Other | 50% pass-through damage | Does not take attack bonus from Samurai |
 Castle Age
|
Caravel
|
 War Galley
|
| Research cost and time |
none | 230 food, 100 gold 38.5 seconds |
| Hit points | 143 | 149 |
| Pierce attack | 6 | 7 |
| Attack bonus vs ship | 6 | 9 |
| Attack bonus vs building | 8 | 7 |
| Armor Melee/Pierce/Ship |
0/8/0 | 0/6/0 |
 Imperial Age
|
 Elite Caravel
|
 Galleon
|
| Research cost and time |
700 food, 525 gold 48 seconds |
400 food, 315 wood 52 seconds |
| Hit points | 165 | 182 |
| Pierce attack | 8 | 8 |
| Attack bonus vs ship | 7 | 11 |
| Attack bonus vs building | 9 | 8 |
| Armor Melee/Pierce/Ship |
0/8/0 | 0/8/0 |
- Similarities
- Movement speed: 1.43
- Attack speed: 3
- Range: 6 (Castle Age rank), 7 (Imperial Age rank)
- Attack bonus vs rams: +4
Further statistics[]
As Caravels are unique to the Portuguese, only technologies that are available to them are shown in the following table:
| Strengths and weaknesses | |
|---|---|
| Strong vs. | Buildings and melee units in the shoreline, Cannon Galleons, units in dense formation, Longboats |
| Weak vs. | Fire Ships, Turtle Ships, towers, Castles, Mangonels, Bombard Cannons, Thirisadais |
| Technologies | |
|---|---|
| Attack |  Fletching (+1) Bodkin Arrow (+1) Bracer (+1) Chemistry (+1)
|
 Range
|
Fletching (+1) Bodkin Arrow (+1) Bracer (+1)
|
| Accuracy |  Ballistics (hit moving targets)
|
| Armor |  Careening (+0/+1) Carrack (+1/+1)
|
| Conversion resistance |  Devotion (+1 min, +1 max) Faith (+4 min, +4 max) Heresy (die upon getting converted)
|
 Movement speed
|
 Dry Dock (+15%)
|
| Team bonuses | |
|---|---|
| Conversion resistance |  Teutons (+3 min, +1 max)
|
Team bonuses[]
Bulgarians: Researching Fletching, Bodkin Arrow and Bracer is 80% faster.- Lithuanians: Researching Heresy, Devotion, and Faith is 20% faster.
- Malians: Researching Chemistry and Ballistics is 80% faster.
- Portuguese: Technologies that benefit Caravels are researched 25% faster.
Changelog[]
Definitive Edition[]
- With update 39284, Caravels cost +0.4 gold as a combination of their civilization bonus change and their gold cost change.
- With update 42848, technologies that benefit Caravels are researched 30% faster as a civilization bonus.
- With an unknown change,[What?] the cost of units was rounded off, so Caravels were back to costing 34 gold.
Dynasties of India[]
- With update 73855, technologies that benefit Caravels are researched 25% faster as a team bonus.
- With update 81058, the Elite Caravel upgrade costs 700 food, 525 gold.
Victors and Vanquished[]
- With update 125283, (Elite) Caravel train time reduced from 36 seconds to 25 seconds.
Heroes[]
There is one hero in the game with the appearance of a Caravel:
History[]
A caravel is a light sailing ship widely used by the Portuguese during the early modern period for long voyages. Apparently developed by the Portuguese for exploring the coast of Africa, the caravel's chief excellence lay in its capacity for reaching remarkable speed and sailing to windward. Nina and Pinta, two of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus during his historic voyage to the New World in 1492, were caravels.[1]
Trivia[]
- Caravels deal bonus damage against the cheat unit Saboteur because it is in the same unit class as ships.
- The Caravel is the only unique naval unit that loses against the Galley line in one-on-one combat.
- The Caravel is used as user interface image of the Portuguese in the Definitive Edition.
- The cross represented on the sails is that of the Order of Christ.
- If a Caravel fights against melee units, the bolt will fire backwards, as if it is being deflected by a unit's weapon. This is because the projectile spawns outside the collision box of the Caravel, so the direction vector of the projectile is backwards.
- The Caravel model in the game is actually a mixture of different ships. The sail model is the sail of square-rigged caravel, a type of different ship with a galleon hull, while the hull model in the game is from a carrack.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
