| “ | Powerful siege engine effective at destroying buildings and walls over a long distance. | ” |
| —Age of Empires IV description | ||
The Traction Trebuchet is a siege engine in Age of Empires IV that is unique to the Mongols. Its role is destroying buildings at long range. Due to its low accuracy when targeting units it is ineffective against them. Its a cheaper version of the Counterweight Trebuchet (even cheaper than a Mangonel) with lower range, attack and hit points, in return for higher rate of fire, movement speed, and a faster setup/disassemble time, as well as quicker training/construction.
Traction Trebuchets can be constructed by infantry in the Castle Age if Improved Siege Engineering has been researched.
2 Traction Trebuchets can be trained for 300 wood, 100 gold, 400 stone.
Unit comparison[]
 Traction Trebuchet
|
 Counterweight Trebuchet
| |
|---|---|---|
| Training Cost | 300 wood, 100 gold | 400 wood, 150 gold |
| Training Time | 30 s | 30 s |
| Hit points | 125 | 140 |
| Bonus vs Buildings | 190 | 350 |
| Rate of Fire | 9.5 | 12.5 |
| Range | 14 tiles | 16 tiles |
| Speed | 0.88 tiles/s | 0.62 tiles/s |
- Their siege attack (40), attack bonus vs Ships (+200) and population requirement (2) are the same.
Further statistics[]
As Traction Trebuchets are unique to the Mongols, only technologies that are available to them are shown in the following table:
| Technologies | |
|---|---|
 Hit points
|
 Siege Works (+20%); Improved: (+30%)
|
| Attack |  Geometry (+20%); Improved: (+30%)
|
 Movement speed
|
 Greased Axles (+15%); Improved: (+20%)
|
| Creation speed |  Military Academy (+33%); Improved: (+53%)
|
| Other |  Siege Engineering Improved (Can be built by infantry in the field)
|
| Aura and ability enhancements | |
|---|---|
| Attack |  Kurultai Aura (+20%)
|
| Armor |  Defense Arrow (+2 melee and ranged for 5/10/12 seconds, depending on Whistling Arrows)
|
| Movement speed
|
 Maneuver Arrow (+33% for 5/10/12 seconds, depending on Whistling Arrows)
|
Dialogue lines[]
Traction Trebuchets use the standard ranged siege engine dialogue lines
- Main article: Siege engine/Mongols dialogue lines
Changelog[]
- Originally, Traction Trebuchets were constructed in the field in 35 seconds. With the Season One Update, constructing them in the field now takes 80 seconds (base).
- Originally, Traction Trebuchets had 320 hit points, 8 ranged armor, dealt 100 damage and had an attack bonus of 200 against Buildings. With Season Two Update 17718, they had 190 hit points, 20 ranged armor, dealt 50 damage and had an attack bonus of 250 against Buildings. With patch 6.1.130, they had 150 hit points, deal 40 damage, and had +200 bonus damage vs buildings. With patch 9.2.628, they had 30 ranged armor. With update 12.0.1974, they have 125 hit points, and their ranged armor was replaced by 80% ranged resistance. With patch 12.1.2454, they deal +190 against buildings.
- Originally, Traction Trebuchets had 13 range. With update 24916, they have 14 range.
- Originally, Traction Trebuchets dealt +500 damage to ships. With update 24916, this was reduced to +200
- Originally, they cost 400 wood, 150 gold, and trained in 35 seconds. With patch 6.1.130, they cost 300 wood, 100 gold, and train in 30 seconds.
- Originally, they had an attack speed of 9.625 seconds. This was improved to 8.625 seconds in patch 9.1.370
- Originally, Traction Trebuchets took 3 population slots. With update 12.0.1974, they take 2.
Trivia[]
- The Traction Trebuchet could have been shared with other civilizations, as the Rus have them in the campaign and the Malians were shown using it in a pre-release trailer.
Campaign version[]
Because the original four campaigns have not been rebalanced since the release of the game, Traction Trebuchets in these campaigns have the following main differences:
- They are available to the Rus in The Rise of Moscow
- They have 400 hit points, have no armor, deal 100 base damage with a 1-tile radius area of effect and +200 vs buildings, have 13 tile range, and have an attack speed of 9.625 seconds.
- They cost 600 wood, 300 gold, take 50 seconds to train, and can only be trained in the Imperial Age
Gallery[]
