Cuman Mercenaries is a technology in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition that is unique to the Cumans and can be researched at the Castle once the Imperial Age is reached. Once researched, it allows the player and their allies to train up to 10 Elite Kipchaks from their Castles for free.
Strategy
The Kipchak is a great raiding unit. Cuman Mercenaries allows the player and their allies to train up to ten free Elite Kipchaks, which can be very useful for quick raids. Also, the unit this technology grants benefits from technologies and bonuses from each allied player (for example, a Magyar player will have Elite Kipchaks with longer range and attack, due to their Recurve Bow unique technology). A contingent of 10 Elite Kipchaks is very useful for hit-and-run tactics.
An important note is that the technology stacks with itself, so in a team with two or more Cuman players, this naturally means that for each player that researches this technology, it increases the limit of the free Elite Kipchaks to ten more. In a team with 4 Cuman players, each one is able to train 40 free Elite Kipchaks after each member researches this technology, for a total of 160 Elite Kipchaks to the entire team, at the total cost of 2,600 food and 1,600 gold instead of 9,600 wood and 5,600 gold (which is the total cost of naturally trained Kipchaks; and this calculation does not take in consideration the elite upgrade each player has to research).
Cuman players may leave this technology alone in several situations in 1 vs 1 games or free for all games, as its gold cost is superior to the gold cost of 10 straightforward trained Elite Kipchaks (Cuman Mercenaries costs 650 food and 400 gold, and 10 regular trained Kipchaks cost 600 wood and 350 gold), unless they really need their Elite Kipchaks at the ready (not the regular ones) and have not already researched the Elite upgrade.
Team bonuses
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