| “ | Stronger than Camel. Excels at killing other mounted units. | ” |
| —Age of Empires II description | ||
The Heavy Camel Rider (called Heavy Camel before the Definitive Edition) is a cavalry unit in Age of Empires II that can be trained at the Stable once the Imperial Age is reached. It excels at battling other cavalry, but is rather ineffective otherwise. Every civilization that has access to Camel Riders except for the Cumans can upgrade them to Heavy Camel Riders, but the upgrade to the Imperial Camel Rider is unique to the Indians.
| Available | Unavailable |
|---|---|
The * indicates that the civilization can fully upgrade their Heavy Camel Riders, i.e. gets Blast Furnace, Plate Barding Armor, Bloodlines, and Husbandry. Faith and Heresy are not taken into account because they only contribute to their combat strength in a very situational manner.
The ^ indicates that the civilization has at least one civilization or team bonus or a unique technology that benefits the combat strength of the Heavy Camel Rider.
Tactics
Camel Riders are essentially mounted Pikemen, doing bonus damage to their own kind as well as other cavalry units. Camel Riders have an advantage over Pikemen since they have enough speed to prevent cavalry from escaping, at the cost of higher food and gold costs. Using Camel Riders against civilizations that revolve around cavalry units, such as Berbers, Franks, Mongols, Persians, and Saracens often leads to great results. They can go head to head with other Imperial Age cavalry and defeat them in combat.
They are powerful against most cavalry, with the exception of Cataphracts, which are almost immune to the bonus damage from Heavy Camel Riders. Heavy Camel Riders are best used against melee cavalry, or to ambush groups of Cavalry Archers. Since they have a very low armor and base attack, they are not effective against anything else than cavalry, so it is wise not send them against archers or infantry, particularly Pikemen. Camel Riders are also ineffective against buildings and actually take extra damage from defensive ones. This was because Camel Riders and ships shared the same unit class before The African Kingdoms was released, so they were annihilated by defensive structures especially with Heated Shot. Units that dealt bonus damage against ships also dealt bonus damage against Heavy Camel Riders. This made Fire Ships, Galleons, Longboats, Mangonels, and Bombard Cannons surprisingly effective against them. With the release of The African Kingdoms, however, all camel units were moved out of the ship class and no longer take bonus damage from the above-mentioned units.
Further statistics
| Unit strengths and weaknesses | |
|---|---|
| Strong vs. | Skirmishers, siege weapons, Cavalry Archers, cavalry |
| Weak vs. | Infantry, archers, Cataphracts |
| Upgrades | |
| Hit points |  Bloodlines (+20) Zealotry (+20, Saracens only)
|
| Attack |  Forging (+1) Iron Casting (+1) Blast Furnace (+2) Farimba (+5, Malians only)
|
| Armor |  Scale Barding Armor (+1/+1) Chain Barding Armor (+1/+1) Plate Barding Armor (+1/+2)
|
| Speed |  Husbandry (+10%)
|
| Conversion defense |  Faith Heresy
|
| Creation speed |  Conscription (+33%)
|
| Other | Maghrebi Camels (gives regeneration ability, Berbers only)
|
| Upgrades |  Imperial Camel Rider (Indians only)
|
Civilization bonuses
- Berbers: Heavy Camel Riders are 20% cheaper.
- Byzantines: Heavy Camel Riders are 25% cheaper.
- Chinese: Technologies that benefit Heavy Camel Riders are 20% cheaper.
- Indians: Heavy Camel Riders have +2 pierce armor.
- Saracens: Heavy Camel Riders have +10 HP.
- Tatars: Heavy Camel Riders deal +25% bonus damage from elevations.
Team bonuses
- A team containing Berbers: With Kasbah researched, researching Conscription is 25% faster.
- A team containing Huns: Heavy Camel Riders are created and upgraded 20% faster. Researching Bloodlines and Husbandry is 20% faster.
- A team containing Indians: Heavy Camel Riders have +4 attack against standard buildings.
- A team containing Teutons: Heavy Camel Riders are more resistant to conversion.
- A team containing Lithuanians: Researching Heresy and Faith is 20% faster.
- A team containing Bulgarians: Researching cavalry armor and attack upgrades at the Blacksmith is 80% faster.
Changelog
The Age of Kings
- The unit is named Heavy Camel.
- Heavy Camels take 29 seconds to train.
- Heavy Camels have a movement speed of 1.4.
- Heavy Camels are in the cavalry armor class, thus taking bonus damage from anti-cavalry attacks.
The Conquerors
- Heavy Camels now train in 22 seconds.
- Heavy Camels now have a movement speed of 1.45.
- The cavalry armor class is removed from the Heavy Camels, so they don't take bonus damage from anti-cavalry attacks anymore. Instead, Heavy Camels are moved in another armor class along with ships, and now take bonus damage from anti-ship/anti-camel attacks. The Heavy Camels themselves also gain an attack bonus of +9 against their own class (and as such, also against ships).
- Bloodlines introduced.
- Heresy introduced.
- Saracens: Zealotry introduced.
The Forgotten
- Indians: Heavy Camels have +1/+1 armor.
- Indians: Team bonus: Camels have +5 attack against buildings.
The African Kingdoms
- The ship armor class is removed from the Heavy Camels, and they receive a new armor class, against which they also gain an attack bonus of +9. Nevertheless, the Heavy Camels keep their attack bonus of +9 against ships. Anti-cavalry attacks still don't affect Heavy Camels.
Rise of the Rajas
- Indians: With patch 5.8, Heavy Camels have +1 pierce armor.
Definitive Edition
- The unit is renamed to Heavy Camel Rider.
- Indians: With update 42848: Heavy Camel Riders have +2 pierce armor, Team bonus: Heavy Camel Riders have +4 attack against standard buildings.
Lords of the West
- Saracens: with update 44725, Heavy Camel Riders get +10 HP.
Trivia
- The Camel Rider is one of the few units whose availability among civilizations corresponds very well with real-world history. Camels were used by different armies between the Mediterranean Sea and India from antiquity to modern day. While it is not known if the Mongols and Chinese used camels for combat, they certainly used camels for transporting ammunition, and for food, respectively. Cumans have no access to the Heavy Camel Riders in-game, possibly for balancing reasons.
- The Far Eastern civilizations of the Mongols, Chinese, Cumans and Tatars (the two latter originated from East Asia) would have been as likely to domesticate the lesser known of the two species of camel, the two-humped Bactrian Camel, native to the steppes of Central Asia, as the familiar Arabian one-humped dromedary; both would have been introduced by Silk Road traders.
- Camel Riders are one of two military units that do not make the usual military sound when created, the other being Trebuchets.
- The Heavy Camel Rider makes the same sound effects as the Camel Rider from Age of Empires.
- Even though they have "heavy" in their name, Heavy Camel Riders have no armor.
- The Heavy Camel Rider's beta model was modified and reused for the Imperial Camel Rider in the Forgotten Empires until patch 3.5.
- The Camel Rider line units are the only common cavalry units that do not have any base pierce armor.
- Heavy Camel Riders deal bonus damage against the cheat unit Saboteur (since The Conquerors) because it is in the same unit class as ships.
History
| “ | The heavy camel was an especially experienced warrior and camel rider who wore some armor. They were used by desert civilizations of the Middle East who fought against archers from the Byzantine Empire and horse archers raiding down from the steppes of Asia. | ” |
Gallery
