Heavy Cannon

Heavy Cannon
Unit information
Introduced in	Age of Empires III
Type	Artillery
Civilization	See description
Age	Industrial Age
Training
Trained at	Factory
Wood	200
Coin	500
Training time	115 seconds
Statistics
Hit points	475
Resists	75% vs. Ranged
Speed	3.5 (Limber) 1.4 (Bombard)
Line of Sight	32
Population	7
XP train bounty	70
XP bounty	70
Siege attack
Damage	200
Multipliers	×3.0 vs. Infantry and Ship ×2.0 vs. Building ×0.75 vs. Artillery ×0.5 vs. Arrow Knights
Range	28
Area of Effect	4
Rate of Fire	6.0

“	Heavy artillery. Good against infantry or buildings.	”
—In-game description

The Heavy Cannon is an artillery unit in Age of Empires III that can only be trained at the Factory or shipped from the Home City.

Heavy Cannons are available to the European and American civilizations except British (who have Rockets instead), John Black's Mercenaries (Act II: Ice campaign), Knights of St. John (Act I: Blood campaign), and Ottomans (who have Great Bombards instead).

Overview

The Heavy Cannon is the typical heavy artillery piece for the Spanish, Portuguese, Germans, Russians, Dutch, and French. Its power and hit points are similar to the Great Bombard, but the rate of fire is slightly faster and it has no penalties versus Cavalry. The Heavy Cannon is effective against enemy infantry and artillery units, Spanish cannons using Unction are also effective versus Cavalry and other Artillery due to high damage and lack of significant penalties.

Overall, a Heavy Cannon (1 on 1 and lacking Unction) would have a good chance to beat a Great Bombard with full health, though it would rely on the Heavy Cannon getting two shots off (12 seconds) before the Bombard began attacking the Heavy Cannon. This is realistically possible due to the Heavy Cannon's smaller penalty versus other artillery and its greater rate of fire. Other common factors such as battlefield confusion, varying levels of micromanagement skill and line of sight advantages allow this scenario to occur frequently. The population cost of this unit is 7.

The General Imperial Age politician provides one Heavy Cannon for Dutch, French, Germans, and Spanish.

Hidden cost

The Heavy Cannon has a base cost of 200 wood and 500 coin, and a train time of 115 seconds (86.25 seconds with "Engineering School" or "TEAM Engineering School" Home City Card, 69 seconds with both), while the Factory generates 5.5 (7.15 with the respective improvements) resources every second.

Therefore, a Factory producing a Heavy Cannon uses up 632.5 resources (475.75 with "Engineering School" or "TEAM Engineering School", 379.5 with both); with all three of the respective improvements, the value goes up to 822.5 (618.475 with "Engineering School" or "TEAM Engineering School", 493.35 with both).

This means for the majority of civilizations, especially those lacking significant damage potential with Heavy Cannon, it is very economically damaging to create them. Improvements and Home City Cards that reduces artillery train time will also affect the Factory, whereas no economic cards do the same. With "Engineering School" or "TEAM Engineering School", the bonus for Heavy Cannon is only 15% whereas regular artillery will train 70% faster (30% faster for civilizations lacking their "Engineering School"), fielding much quicker.

Upgrades

Age	Upgrade	Cost	Effect
	Imperial Cannon	1,500 wood, 1,500 coin	Upgrade Heavy Cannons to Imperial Cannons (+50% hit points and attack)

Civilization differences

The Chinese can get Heavy Cannons by the following ways:

• Allying with the Russians at the Consulate, which provides the shipment of one Factory Wagon, allowing the Chinese player to build a single Factory and train Heavy Cannons.
• Allying with the Germans at the Consulate (requires a level 40 Home City), which provides the German Expeditionary Army that includes one Heavy Cannon (two before update 23511). Unlike their regular counterpart, these Heavy Cannons are automatically upgraded in the Industrial Age and the Imperial Age (see here for the exact values).

Further statistics

Unit strengths and weaknesses
Strong vs.	Most units, buildings
Weak vs.	Artillery especially Culverins, Arrow Knights
Improvements
Hit points	Professional Gunners (+10%)
Attack	Heated Shot (+1.5x multiplier vs. ships)
Sight	Town Watch (+2) Gunner's Quadrant (+6)
Speed	Trunion (+15%) Apache Endurance (+5%)
Creation speed	Mass Production (-25%) Quechuan Diet (-10%)
Other	Meritocracy (-20% upgrade cost)
Penalties	Coffee Trade (-10% speed, Dutch only)

Home City Cards

Click for a list of Home City Cards related to the Heavy Cannon

• Green: TEAM Shipment that is sent to each player in a team
• Purple: Shipment that can be sent an INFINITE number of times

All

Card	Description	Age	HC level
2 Heavy Cannons	Ships 2 Heavy Cannons (also +4 Uhlans for the Germans)		10

Chinese

Card	Description	Age	HC level
Western Reforms	All units get +8% hit points and attack		40
Siege Hitpoints	Artillery get +15% hit points; Flamethrowers get +20% hit points		10
Siege Attack	Artillery get +15% attack; Flamethrowers get +20% attack		10
Siege Combat	Artillery get +15% hit points and attack; Flamethrowers get +20% hit points and attack		25
TEAM Engineering School	Artillery, Grenade Trooper, Petard, Ram, Mantlet, Flamethrower, Siege Elephant, Black Flag Army, and Mongolian Army train time -15%; Heavy Cannons, Rockets, Great Bombards, and Flying Crows train 10% faster		25

"TEAM Engineering School" is also available to the Swedes.

Europeans

Card	Description	Age	HC level
TEAM Artillery Hitpoints	Artillery and Grenade Trooper gets +15% hit points		10
Engineering School	Artillery train time -30%; Heavy Cannons train 20% faster		25

• "TEAM Artillery Hitpoints" is available to Ottomans and Portuguese (in the Fortress Age).
• Since the Heavy Cannon cannot be trained by British and Ottomans, "Engineering School" is only relevant to French, Portuguese, and Swedes.

French

Card	Description	Age	HC level
Gribeauval System	Falconets, Culverins, and Horse Artillery get +25% attack; Heavy Cannons get +20% attack		40

Germans

Card	Description	Age	HC level
1 Heavy Cannon	Ships 1 Heavy Cannon		10

Indians

Card	Description	Age	HC level
TEAM Shivaji's Tactics	All units get +5% hit points and attack		25

Japanese

Card	Description	Age	HC level
TEAM Cheaper Unit Upgrades	Unit upgrades cost -20%		1

Russians

Card	Description	Age	HC level
Tsar Cannon	Ships 2 Heavy Cannons		25

Spanish

Card	Description	Age	HC level
TEAM Inquisition	All units get +10 LOS		10

Swedes

Card	Description	Age
Case Shot	Leather Cannons, Falconets, Culverins, Horse Artillery and Heavy Cannons get the Case Shot attack (used against enemies within half of the normal range or closer, which deals 10% of the normal damage with 7 projectiles and +2 AOE, but with a multiplier of ×0.5 against Cavalry and Shock Infantry, and also a ×2.0 multiplier against Infantry for Culverins)
Cronstedt Reforms	Leather Cannons, Falconets, and Heavy Cannons use -1 population

United States

Card	Description	Age
Knox Artillery Train	Upgrades Horse Artillery to Heavy Horse Guns (if not already); Horse Artillery and Heavy Cannons get +20% hit points; Horse Artillery train time -25%; Heavy Cannon train time -15%

Trivia

• The Heavy Cannon was originally trained at the Artillery Foundry.
• According to pre-release screenshots, the Heavy Cannon would be available to the British. There are unused voice files for British Heavy Cannon in the game files and in the Scenario Editor, which are the same voice files used by the Rocket.

History

“

The logistics of moving, maintaining, positioning, aiming, and firing artillery required a highly drilled and disciplined team with a sharp commander. In addition to the men and artillery pieces in his command, an artillery officer had to see to the horses used to haul the pieces around - sometimes up to six for heavier guns. When one side in a battle could field hundreds of artillery pieces, the logistics of just moving them into position were taxing. "Heavy Cannon" is a relative term, but in general, cannon considered 'heavy' were typically used as permanent gun emplacements to defend Forts and strategic locations.

”

Gallery

A Heavy Cannon in Bombard mode

A Heavy Cannon in Limber mode

Heavy Cannon side model

Heavy Cannon in Bombard mode model

Heavy Cannon in Bombard mode side model

See also

• Flying Crow – Chinese analogue