Double Crossbow

Double Crossbow
Availability
Introduced in	Age of Empires II HD: Rise of the Rajas
Civilization	Khmer
Age	Imperial Age
Research
Researched at	Castle
Food	700
Gold	400
Research time	40 seconds
Effect
Ballista Elephants and Scorpions fire an additional projectile of half strength

Double Crossbow is a technology in Age of Empires II HD: Rise of the Rajas that is unique to the Khmer and can be researched at the Castle once the Imperial Age is reached. Once researched, it makes Ballista Elephants and Scorpions fire one more projectile.

To offset the power a little bit, however, the secondary projectile has a slight cone spread and does less damage than the primary one.

The secondary projectile of Scorpions and Ballista Elephants deals 6 pierce attack and 3 bonus attack against Elephants. The secondary projectile of Heavy Scorpions deals 12 pierce attack and 4 bonus attack against Elephants. The secondary projectile of Ballista Elephants benefits from Chemistry but the secondary projectile of Scorpions does not. Neither secondary projectile has a melee attack attached to it, unlike the primary projectile of the Scorpions.

Strategy

Double Crossbow further bolsters the strength of Ballista Elephants and the Khmer's already impeccable Scorpions (+1 range due to their team bonus and access to Siege Engineers) against mass infantry.

Scorpions and Ballista Elephants with Double Crossbow are effective in large groups, as they can devastate large areas (comparatively, this puts the Khmer Scorpions at the same level as Ethiopian, Celtic, Chinese, and Roman Scorpions).

Team bonuses

• Portuguese: Researching Double Crossbow is 25% faster.

History

A platformed multi-shot crossbow illustrated in the Ming dynasty military manual "Wu Bei Zhi"

Double crossbow is a set of crossbows with double bows, enabling the user to fire two arrows almost simultaneously. According to reliefs from 12th and early 13th centuries, Khmer people were known to employ double crossbows as their weapons. This practice was borrowed from China, who installed those weapons at the siege and defense of fortresses. The Khmer however, put these arms on the back of war elephants.

Trivia

• For some reason, the technology name is referred to in the plural (as Double Crossbows) in the Definitive Edition tooltip for researching the technology. It is referred to by its proper name everywhere else, so this is probably an error or oversight.