This article is about the technology in Age of Empires II. For the technology in Age of Mythology, see Crenellations (Age of Mythology). |
Crenellations is a technology in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors that is unique to the Teutons and can be researched at the Castle once the Imperial Age is reached. Once researched, it increases Castle range by +3, and any garrisoned infantry can shoot arrows.
Strategy[]
The main benefit of Crenellations is the increased range it gives to Castles. Despite lacking Bracer, a Teuton Castle with Crenellations and Bodkin Arrow has a massive 13 range, 2 more than any other civilizations. This allows the Castle to match the range of and fight back against Bombard Cannons and Cannon Galleons without Siege Engineers. However, Trebuchets, Cannon Galleons with Siege Engineers, and Elite Cannon Galleons will still outrange the Castle, as well as Turkish Bombard Cannons and Cannon Galleons with Artillery. The increased range also allows closely-clustered groups of Castles to support each other better with greater overlapping fields of fire. When combined with the ability to gain arrows from garrisoned infantry, including Teutonic Knights created within the Castles themselves, this technology makes Teuton Castles very potent static defenses and area-denial weapons.
The secondary effect of Crenellations is giving infantry the ability to add extra arrows while garrisoned. All of the player's infantry units will be treated as having 2.5 ranged damage per second (the same as a Villager) for the purpose of adding arrows to garrisonable structures. Like Villagers, this value is not increased by technologies such as Fletching or Chemistry. The player's infantry will add arrows to allied buildings but allied infantry will not add arrows to the player's buildings.
Normally, only archer-type units and Villagers provide additional arrows to a building's firepower, while infantry do not. Crenellations gives a Teutonic player an edge by circumventing this, allowing any garrisoned infantry to contribute to a tower/Castle/Town Center's defense. This becomes valuable if the player's army is routed and is on a retreat, and there are auxiliary Castles and towers near the enemy base, as they can hide in them to heal while also bolstering the structures' defensive capabilities.
It is not always advantageous to garrison infantry. The extra damage added to a tower is a fixed 2.5 DPS per infantry (same as the Villager), and most infantry deal more than this - for example, the Champion deals 7 DPS against an enemy with 3 melee armor - especially given that melee armor is generally lower than pierce armor. While infantry have no range and garrisoning grants them range, a garrisoned unit is unable to move around due to the stationary nature of buildings, so their ability to provide pressure is not going to improve.
The technology is very expensive, with 400 stone required; nearly two-thirds the cost of a Castle. This means the technology should only be researched when the player has a large number of Castles or the opponent is making use of Bombard Cannons. The secondary effect of giving infantry the ability to fire while garrisoned is useful on its own, but not enough to justify the cost.
Team bonuses[]
- Portuguese: Researching Crenellations is 25% faster.
Trivia[]
- The garrison effect is stored as a resource for the player ("Resource 194 - Crenellations"), rather than the affected infantry or buildings.
- As such, it applies to converted infantry, but is lost for any converted player's units.
History[]
“ | The Teutons carried their crusade mainly into Eastern Europe while others groups vied for the Holy Land. The Teutons became especially adept at the art of building and using castles offensively to establish political control of the countryside. A few knights and soldiers in a dominating castle could control the countryside for miles. | ” |
—The Conquerors manual |