Shock infantry

This article is about the tag in Age of Empires III. For the armor class in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors, see Armor class: Shock infantry.

Shock infantry is a tag referring to a class of infantry that functions like cavalry, having similar roles and counters. Defined as AbstractLightInfantry in the game files, this class was introduced in Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs.

There are two types of Shock Infantry:

• Hand shock infantry (labeled as AbstractCoyoteMan in game files)
• Ranged shock infantry (labeled as AbstractRangedShockInfantry in game files)

As the damage role of shock infantry is to substitute cavalry, all anti-cavalry units have multipliers against shock infantry. Due to the lower hit points of shock infantry compared to cavalry, shock infantry multipliers are slightly lower than cavalry multipliers.

Hand shock infantry

The following units are Hand Shock Infantry:

• Chasqui
• Chimu Runner
• Coyote Runner
• Disciple
• Pirate
• Rattan Shield
• Shotel Warrior
• Tiger Claw
• Wokou Pirate

Hand shock infantry are a substitute unit type for hand cavalry, so they are countered by light ranged cavalry and heavy infantry. All hand shock infantry units have the hand infantry tag.

Ranged shock infantry

The following units are ranged shock infantry:

• Aztec Eagle Warrior
• Eagle Runner Knight
• Knife Thrower (Outlaw)

Ranged shock infantry are a substitute unit type for light cavalry, so they are countered by light infantry. All units that have multipliers against light cavalry also have multipliers against ranged shock infantry at the same value.

History

Light infantry refers to two different types of units depending on whether referring to Age of Empires III, to the expansions of The WarChiefs and The Asian Dynasties or to the Definitive Edition after the Knights of the Mediterranean release:

• As tradition in other games of the series, in vanilla Age of Empires III all ranged infantry units that counter heavy infantry and light cavalry with their ranged attacks are considered light infantry.
• In The WarChiefs and The Asian Dynasties, light infantry constitutes infantry that emulate cavalry. The units formerly tagged as light infantry are no longer considered as such and do not possess the tag anymore, being tagged as just infantry and ranged infantry; they're differentiated from the Musketeer-type of units which have the heavy infantry tag. Eagle Runner Knights are the only light infantry substitute for light cavalry, so all units that have multipliers against light cavalry also have hidden multipliers against Eagle Runner Knights (xpEagleKnight in game files) at the same value.
• In the Definitive Edition, to avoid confusion, light infantry was renamed to Shock Infantry, although it is still referred as AbstractLightInfantry in game files. With update 13088, the AbstractCoyoteMan tag was altered to display as "Hand Shock Infantry" in the UI and was retroactively applied to the Tiger Claw and the Rattan Shield, while the Tiger Claw had its infantry tag removed. With update 23511, traditional units labeled as light infantry in roles and functions were placed under the foot archer and rifle infantry tags.
• In The African Royals, with update 43871, the icon for hand shock infantry was added. With update 54545, all multipliers against Eagle Runner Knights (xpEagleKnight in game files) were replaced by multipliers against the Ranged Shock Infantry tag (AbstractRangedShockInfantry in game files) and was retroactively applied to the Eagle Runner Knight and the Aztec Eagle Warrior.
• After the release of Knights of the Mediterranean the Light Infantry tag was added, including all Rifle infantry and Foot Archer units, making the class a return as a real class in the counter system. The readded class probably came back for accommodating new archetypes of units, like the Schiavone that counters Light Infantry. With update 13.58326, the icon for ranged shock infantry was added, so multipliers against ranged shock infantry are no longer hidden.