Mahouts

Mahouts
Availability
Introduced in	The Conquerors
Civilization	Persians
Age	Imperial Age
Research
Researched at	Castle
Food	300
Gold	300
Research time	50 seconds
Effect
War Elephant speed +30%

Mahouts is a technology in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors that is unique to the Persians and can be researched at the Castle once the Imperial Age is reached. Once researched, it increases the speed of War Elephants by +30%.

Strategy

For a Persian player who uses War Elephants, Mahouts is an absolute must. Still being relatively slow, the Elephants can now close gaps between archers and defensive structures faster and thus last even longer in battle. Still, they will need support of either ranged units or Knights to counter Monks and Cavalry Archers.

Team bonuses

• A team containing Berbers: With Kasbah researched, researching Mahouts is 25% faster.

Trivia

• Mahouts is the cheapest of all Imperial Age unique technologies, costing a total of 600 resources.
• The Mahouts effect is possibly a callback to the Persians' civilization bonus in Age of Empires, where elephant units move 25% faster (56% before the Definitive Edition, 20% before update 38862).

History

“	Using elephants in battle was always a challenge because the animals have poor vision but keen smell, they are relatively slow, and don’t like being injured. The Persians developed special training for the beasts and their riders, called Mahouts, to improve their battle performance.	”
—The Conquerors manual