Fire Ship (Age of Empires III)

This article is about the unit in Age of Empires III. For the unit in other games of the series, see Fire Ship.

Fire Ship
Information
Introduced in	Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition - Knights of the Mediterranean
Type	Ship War ship
Civilization(s)	Maltese
Age	Commerce Age
Required Home City Card	Greek Fire
Training
Trained at	Dock
Cost	100 Wood 100 Coin
Train limit	10
Statistics
Hit points	400
Resistance	50% Ranged
Speed	9.0
Line of Sight	40
Train XP	20
Kill XP	20
Hand attack
Damage	500 Siege
Area of Effect	2
Bonus damage	2.5x vs. Building

“	Fire Ship. Rams anything on the water and explodes.	”
—In-game description

The Fire Ship in Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition - Knights of the Mediterranean is a suicide unit, a Caravel lit on fire. It rams itself into enemy buildings or ships, inflicting severe damage. It must be unlocked by the Maltese through the Greek Fire card. It is statistically identical to the Fire Junk.

Overview

This burning ship explodes and inflicts a lot of damage when hits its target; however, it has very few hit points and is vulnerable to ranged attacks as it approaches. Caution is advised when encountering a Fire Ship; try to sink it before it reaches any of the player's units or buildings. If commanding a Fire Ship, try to reach the target as quickly and directly as possible, and try to avoid it getting hit, preferably by distracting the enemy or by guarding it with other ships.

The Fire Ship does not have any upgrades.

Further statistics

Unit strengths and weaknesses
Strong vs.	Ships, buildings
Weak vs.	Artillery especially Culverins, defensive structures
Improvements
Hit points	Armor Plating (+50%) Byzantine Legacy (+15%) Tar Kilns (+10%)
Attack	Carronade (+25%) Somali Ajuran Engineers (+20% multiplier vs. Frontier fortification)
Line of Sight	Town Watch (+3)
Cost	Mapuche Ad-mapu (-10% coin cost) Golden Liberty (-5% coin cost)
Train time	Immigrants (-10%)

Home City Cards

Click for a list of Home City Cards related to the Fire Ship

Some cards are highlighted with:
Green	TEAM Shipment that is sent to each player in a team
Purple	Shipment that can be sent an INFINITE number of times
Blue	Shipment that arrives fast (5 seconds)

Shared

Card	Description	Age
TEAM Improved Warships	War ship hit points and damage +10%

• "TEAM Improved Warships" is available to the Chinese and Maltese.

Indians

Card	Description	Age
TEAM Shivaji's Tactics	Unit hit points and damage +5%

Maltese

Card	Description	Age
TEAM Knights of the Round Table	Delivers 1 Hospitaller for each Town Center and Command Post present on the map; unit hit points +2%
Advanced Dock	Dock damage +100%, heal work rate for ships +85%; war ship train time -33%
Naval Gunners	War ship damage +20%
Greek Fire	Enables Docks to build Fire Ships
Speronaras	Ship speed +10%; Fishing Boat and Order Galley speed +30% instead
Offshore Support	War ship damage +15%, Line of Sight and ranged attack range +2
Admiralty	Dock war ship technology cost and research time -60%

Mexicans

Card	Description	Age
TEAM Mariachi	For the next 30 seconds, military building training and research work rate +400%, unit speed +10%

Russians

Card	Description	Age
TEAM Cold Water Port	War ship cost -15%

Spanish

Card	Description	Age
TEAM Spanish Inquisition	Delivers 1 Inquisitor; military and economic unit Line of Sight +10

Campaign

Fire Ship
Information
Introduced in	Age of Empires III
Type	Ship War ship
Civilization(s)	Knights of St. John (Act I: Blood)
Age	Commerce Age
Training
Trained at	Dock
Cost	200 Wood 200 Coin
Train limit	5
Statistics
Hit points	240
Resistance	50% Ranged
Speed	5.5
Line of Sight	54
Train XP	40
Kill XP	40
Hand attack
Damage	900 Siege
Bonus damage	2.0x vs. Fountain of Youth

“	Rams anything on the water and explodes.	”
—In-game description

The Fire Ship in Age of Empires III is a suicide unit, a Caravel lit on fire. It rams itself into enemy buildings or ships, inflicting severe damage. It can be built by the Knights of St. John.

In the campaigns, it makes its first appearance in the third scenario of the Act I: Blood campaign, where enemy Fire Ships are used against the player's ships. They appear again in the eighth scenario of Act I and can be used to destroy the Fountain of Youth.

To enable the Fire Ship at the Dock in a custom scenario, go to the Triggers Menu, go to Set Tech Status and go to "SPCEnableFireship".

Changelog

Age of Empires III

• The Fire Ship reuses the portrait of the Caravel.

Definitive Edition

• With a later update, the Fire Ship received its own portrait.

In-game dialogue

The Fire Ship speaks a variant of Middle English using the British Frigate's dialogue files.

Trivia

• The Fire Ship uses the same model as the Caravel, more specifically, the early versions of the Caravel (which can be noted by the lack of a cross on its sails).

History

“

Virtually everything on a tall ship is flammable, from wooden planks and tar that seals seams to greased ropes and canvas sails, to gunpowder - especially gunpowder! Black powder ships, also called fireships, were ships set afire and allowed to drift (or were sometimes piloted by a minimal crew, who escaped before impact) into enemy fleets with the purpose of setting them afire and blowing them up. Fireships were particularly nasty when sailed into harbors to destroy immobile ships at anchor. Fireships were used by the English Royal Navy against the larger and more powerful Spanish Armada. Unable to find a proper port or deep mooring, the Spanish fleet congregated in a defensive arc, into which the British sailed a half-dozen fireships, scattering and confusing the Spanish fleet. This allowed the smaller English fleet to engage the Spanish Armada on a more even footing.

”

Gallery

An in-game Fire Ship

Two Fire Ships hitting two warships

Three Fire Ships awaiting the player's commands in The Fountain of Youth?

In-game Fire Ship in the Definitive Edition