Hero (Age of Empires)

This article is about the heroes in Age of Empires. For heroes in other games of the series, see Hero.

Heroes are special units in Age of Empires. Unavailable in regular games, they typically refer to historical or mythological figures found in lore of ancient civilizations. As such, they are often featured in campaign scenarios.

They are often must-survive units, i.e. their death means instant defeat. Some of them are completely fictitious in the confines of the game.

List of heroes

Hero	Campaign appearances	Sprite	Civilization	Special attributes
Age of Empires
Alexander	The Trojan War (original) Alexander the Great I Shall Return (original)	Heavy Cavalry	Greeks/Macedonians
Amon Ra	None	Priest	Egyptians	150 hit points, 51% faster than a Priest
Blind Lame Priest (removed)	The Assassins	Priest	None
Corlis	None	Villager	None	Cannot build buildings nor collect resources.
Hector	The Trojan War	Heavy Cavalry	Greeks (in-game) Unknown (historically)	Cannot be tasked to attack or board transports.
Hersifon	None	Villager	None	Cannot build buildings nor collect resources.
Invisible Demon (removed)	The Siege of Athens (original)	Priest (only when killed, otherwise invisible)	None
Jason	The Siege of Athens (original)	Unique (leaves an Axeman corpse when killed, original) Short Swordsman (Definitive Edition)	Greeks/Egyptians	The only unit with an unique appearance (before the Definitive Edition).
Mor Havoc	The Wreck of the Hyskos	Priest	Libyan (Egyptians)	180 hit points, 51% faster than a Priest.
Perseus	The Assassins (original) Island Hopping (original)	Composite Bowman	Greeks
Tiberius	None	Chariot	Romans (since The Rise of Rome; none originally)	Deals additional damage to Priests and resistant to enemy conversion.
Xerxes	The Assassins (original) Xenophon's March (original)	Short Swordsman	Persians
The Rise of Rome
Archimedes	The Siege of Syracuse	Priest	Greeks	Cannot heal or convert.
Caesar	Caesar's Revenge The Invasion of Britain The Siege of Alesia The Battle of Pharsalus	Cataphract (original) Heavy Cavalry (The Rise of Rome)	Romans	Larger Line of Sight.
Cleopatra's Barge	The Battle of Actium	Juggernaut	Egyptians	Rate of Fire is similar to a Phoenician Juggernaut.
Hannibal	Crossing the Alps	Armored Elephant	Carthaginians	Faster than a regular War Elephant.
Mark Antony	None	Short Swordsman	Romans
Scipio	The Battle of Zama	Cataphract (original) Heavy Cavalry (The Rise of Rome)	Romans
Vercingetorix	The Siege of Alesia	Heavy Cavalry	Gauls (Assyrians/Greeks)
Definitive Edition
Achilles	The Trojan War (since the Definitive Edition) The Chosen One	Broad Swordsman	Greeks
Ajax	The Trojan War (since the Definitive Edition)	Hoplite	Greeks
Hero	None	Heavy Cavalry	None
Lord Martek	None	Centurion (original) Phalangite (RoR)	None	Very fast, but very weak.
Muwatalli	The Battle of Kadesh The Chosen One	Scythe Chariot	Hittites
Odysseus	The Trojan War (since the Definitive Edition)	Composite Bowman	Greeks
Paris	The Trojan War (since the Definitive Edition)	Cavalry	Greeks (in-game) Unknown (historically)
Pericles	None	Phalangite	Greeks
Prince Shotoku	The Canyon of Death (since the Definitive Edition)	Horse Archer	Yamato
Ramesses	The Battle of Kadesh	Chariot Archer	Egyptians
Xanthippus	Battle of Tunis (since the Definitive Edition)	Centurion (original) Phalangite (The Rise of Rome)	Carthaginians/Greeks
Xu Fu	The Assassins (since the Definitive Edition)	Composite Bowman	Yamato (in-game)/Shang(historically)
Return of Rome
Decebalus	None	Legionary	Dacians (Macedonians)
Demetrius	A Second Alexander	Hoplite	Macedonians
Domitian	None	Cataphract	Romans
Great Pyramid	None	Unique	Egyptians
Hadrian	The Prophecy	Centurion	Romans
Hunting Wolf	None	Wolf	None
Lysimachus	None	Broad Swordsman	Macedonians
Ornlu the Wolf	None	Wolf	None
Osroes I	None	Heavy Horse Archer	Parthians (Persians)
Pyrrhus	A Second Alexander The Many Kings of Macedon Pyrrhic Victories Savior of the Greeks Sisyphus	Unique	Greeks/Macedonians
Queen Zenobia	None	Camel Rider	Palmyrans
Sargon	The Chosen One	Unique	Akkadians (Sumerians)
Sargon of Akkad	Divine Will The Prophecy	Unique	Akkadians (Sumerians)

Trivia

• Heroes in the original Age of Empires and its Definitive Edition can be converted and do not regenerate. This has been changed in Return of Rome, where they're more in line with the Age of Empires II heroes.
• Originally, almost all hero units had Hero before their name. This was removed in Return of Rome.
• Descriptions were added to the existing heroes in the Definitive Edition before being dropped in Return of Rome.
• Since Return of Rome, heroes have a separate category in the Scenario Editor, in addition to having a golden glow (except for the Hunting Wolf), being immune to conversions and regenerating hit points.
• A possible bug or oversight in the Scenario Editor is that the original Age of Empires heroes are not available under "gaia"; therefore, they cannot be added as units to be found and acquired by the player. This does not apply to four of the heroes added in The Rise of Rome: Caesar, Hannibal, Mark Antony, and Scipio.