Ring Archer Armor is a technology in Age of Empires II that can be researched at the Blacksmith once the Imperial Age is reached. Once researched, it increases the armor and pierce armor of all archers by +1/+2.
Ring Archer Armor is available to all civilizations except for the Aztecs, Bulgarians, Burmese, Celts, Franks, Huns, and Mongols.
Civilization bonuses
Team bonuses
- A team containing Bulgarians: Researching Ring Archer Armor is 50% faster.
Changelog
The Forgotten
- Indians: Cannot research Ring Archer Armor.
The African Kingdoms
- Berbers: On release, cannot research Ring Archer Armor. With patch 4.8, it has been added to their technology tree.
- Indians: Ring Archer Armor added to their technology tree.
Trivia
- The ring armor depicted in the technology icon (metal rings sown into a suit made out of cloth or leather) is not certain to have even existed within the game's time frame. There are no known surviving examples and historical depictions of the suit (such as the one in Bayeux tapestry) are likely to be portrayals of similar-looking mail armor.
- Archers were almost always of a lower social standing than knights and therefore could not afford such protection.
History
| “ | As the Middle Ages progressed, light troops were more aggressively employed in battle. They supported pikemen phalanxes and were put into combined formations with these units. Crossbowmen needed to get close to the enemy to shoot. During assaults on fortifications and castles, they were exposed to enemy fire. In conjunction with their more aggressive roles, the armor that light troops wore was upgraded to ring, or chain mail. This was the lightest and most flexible of the metal armors and minimized interference with fighting, while providing better protection than padded leather. | ” |
