| “ | Mobile cavalry effective at raiding and flanking. | ” |
| —Age of Empires IV description | ||
The Horseman is a light melee cavalry unit in Age of Empires IV. It can be trained at the Stables starting in the Feudal Age, except for the Mongols who can train them in the Dark Age.
It is available to all civilizations, except the Malians, Delhi Sultanate, Ottomans, and Order of the Dragon.
Civilizations[]
| Available | Unavailable |
|---|---|
Tactics[]
The Horseman is a light melee cavalry unit with high speed, low attack, and no melee armor. Due to its pierce armor, attack bonus, and relatively cheap cost, its main role is as a cost-effective counter to all ranged units, including ranged cavalry and siege units.
Even with the attack bonus, they do less damage than heavy cavalry, but the latter are much more expensive and are susceptible to Crossbowmen. In the Feudal Age, for civilizations without access to early Knights, Horsemen also function as the primary raiding unit due to their high mobility. They don't have the armor or hit points to survive Town Center fire for very long at this stage, so they are more useful for catching isolated Villagers off guard. They can continue performing this raiding role later in the game as well, but get outclassed by heavy cavalry due to their lower attack and lack of charge attack bonus making it more difficult to hit-and-run, and their lower survivability under defensive building fire.
The Mongols have access to Horsemen in the Dark Age, making them one of the most aggressive civilizations. This enables them to start raiding their opponents in the Dark Age. This is especially effective against the English, who lack access to the Spearman in the Dark Age.
As a cavalry unit, it is weak to the Spearman and the Camel Rider, both of which receive an attack bonus against cavalry units. Heavy units such as Lancers or Men-at-Arms can also overpower the Horseman by brute force, but the Horseman can avoid combat due to its mobility.
In practice, Horsemen are only a light counter against ranged infantry (in comparison to e.g. the Spearman, which heavily counters cavalry). This is due to multiple shortcomings of the unit: For one, its small range and large unit size can significantly limit the amount of Horsemen which can attack an archer mass at a time, especially if the enemy uses the terrain to their advantage. Another problem is that while it trades well against ranged units, it does less so against melee infantry units, and even if it wins, it takes a significant amount of time. As such, mixing in just a few melee units into an archer mass, especially Spearmen, makes Horsemen fare significantly worse. So, while melee cavalry can avoid an unfavorable matchup against Spearmen due to their mobility, ranged infantry can avoid an unfavorable matchup against Horsemen using terrain and protection by melee units.
However, Horsemen are still excellent at soaking up damage from ranged units, especially once Crossbowmen begin to appear, and can heavily punish positioning mistakes.
Once population efficiency starts to matter more than cost, the Horseman is usually replaced by heavy cavalry, as its higher base damage makes it less susceptible against melee infantry mixed into an archer mass, and its much higher hit points let it survive longer when under attack, even with Crossbowmen in the enemy army.
Further statistics[]
| Strengths and weaknesses | |
|---|---|
| Strong vs. | Ranged units, siege engines |
| Weak vs. | Spearmen, heavy units (melee), Camel Riders |
| Technologies | |
|---|---|
| Hit points |  Biology (+20%, except  French and  Jeanne d'Arc) Biology Improved (+30%,  Mongols) Royal Bloodlines (+35%, French and Jeanne d'Arc) Boyar's Fortitude (+20  Rus)
|
| Attack | Non-Japanese: Bloomery (+1) Decarbonization (+1) Damascus Steel (+1) Additional Torches (+3 fire, Mongols) Additional Torches Improved: (+5 fire, Mongols) Japanese: Tatara (+1) Hizukuri (+1) Kobuse-gitae (+1) Yaki-ire (+1)
|
| Armor |  Fitted Leatherwork (+1 melee) Insulated Helm (+1 melee) Master Smiths (+1 melee) Iron Undermesh (+1 ranged) Wedge Rivets (+1 ranged) Angled Surfaces (+1 ranged) Riveted Chain Mail (+2 melee,  Holy Roman Empire)
|
| Creation speed |  Military Academy (+33%); Improved: (+53%, Mongols)
|
| Ability |  Miltary Wing - Reinforcement (Can build Battering Rams, Siege Towers, Springalds, and Mangonels,  Ayyubids)
|
| Other |  Expilatores (+20 gold per villager killed,  Byzantines) Roar of the Dragon (Charge attack gains Area of Effect,  Zhu Xi's Legacy)
|
| Civilization bonuses | |
|---|---|
| Hit points |  Chinese (+10% in  Ming Dynasty)
|
| Movement speed | Chinese (+15% in  Yuan Dynasty)
|
| Resource cost | Zhu Xi's Legacy (-10% in Yuan Dynasty)
|
| Creation speed |  English (+100% from The White Tower) French (+20% with School of Cavalry)
|
| Ability | Byzantines (Gain Pilgrim Flask ability with Cistern of the First Hill)
|
| Other | English (Can be created at Keeps) Mongols (Available in Dark Age)
|
Dialogue lines[]
- Abbasid Dynasty and Ayyubids: /Abbasid Dynasty dialogue lines
- Byzantines: /Byzantine dialogue lines
- Chinese and Zhu Xi's Legacy: /Chinese dialogue lines
- English: /English dialogue lines
- French and Jeanne d'Arc: /French dialogue lines
- Holy Roman Empire: /Holy Roman Empire dialogue lines
- Japanese: /Japanese dialogue lines
- Mongols: /Mongols dialogue lines
- Rus: /Rus dialogue lines
Changelog[]
- Originally, all ranks of Horsemen had 0 ranged armor. With update 8324, all ranks have 1 ranged armor. With patch 10257, Regular, Veteran and Elite have 2 ranged armor. With Season Two Update 17718, Veteran and Elite have 3 and 4 ranged armor respectively.
- Originally, Early Horsemen had 125/155/190/225 hit points per upgrade level. With update 8324, this was reduced to 100/125/155/180 hit points. With update 24916, Early Horsemen have 110 hit points.
- Originally, the elite upgrade took 90 seconds. With update 8324, it takes 60 seconds.
- Originally, Horsemen had +10 torch damage vs siege. With patch 11009, it is +20. With Season Two Update 17718, the bonus damage was reverted to +10, but now applies to the Horsemen's melee attack instead of their torch attack.
- Originally, upgrading Early Horsemen to Regular Horsemen took 30 seconds and cost 25 food, 75 gold. With patch 20249, it takes 15 seconds and costs 15 food, 35 gold.
- Originally, Early Horsemen had 7 melee attack. With update 24916, they have 8 melee attack.
Campaign version[]
Because the original four campaigns have not been rebalanced since the release of the game, Horsemen have the following main differences in those campaigns
- They cost 110 food, 10 wood.
- They have zero pierce armor, but have 155/195/240/280 hit points per upgrade level.
- They deal 7/9/11/13 damage per upgrade level with only a +4/+5/+6/+7 (x1.5 base damage multiplier) vs Archers.
- They deal 12/30/30/30 fire damage with their torch attack per upgrade level every 4.12 seconds.
- The Regular, Veteran, and Elite upgrades cost 50 food, 150 gold / 100 food, 300 gold /and 200 food, 600 gold respectively, and take 60/60/90 seconds to upgrade respectively.
Gallery[]
