| “ | Traders generate Gold by travelling between their Home Market and a Trade Post or another player's Market. Greater distances between the Home Market and trade destination will generate higher amounts of Gold. The Home Market or Trade destination may be changed at any time. | ” |
| —Age of Empires IV description | ||
The Trade Caravan is a unique Trader of the Abbasid Dynasty and Ayyubids in Age of Empires IV: Knights of Cross and Rose. It is unlocked at the Market in the Feudal Age and is used to generate resources through trade with other players' Markets or Docks, or with neutral Trade Posts.
Abilities[]
Camel Unease (passive): Enemy horse-riding cavalry within a 5-tile radius deal 20% less damage.
Unit comparison[]
 Trader
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 Trade Caravan
| |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | 60 wood, 60 gold | 40 wood, 40 gold |
| Hit points | 90 | 60 |
| Speed | 1 | 1.56 |
| Gold generation | 1x gold / second | ~0.88x gold / second |
The Trade Caravan is a faster, cheaper version of the Trader. It retains the 33% discount that the Abbasid and Ayyubid Traders had through their civilization bonuses. To compensate for its noticeably faster speed, the Trade Caravan returns significantly less gold per trip, resulting in approximately 12%-14% less gold per minute compared to a Trader, depending on the trade route size (longer trade routes perform better by comparison). The exact trade route income calculation is detailed on the trade page. Overall, despite the lower return, the advantage of the Trade Caravan is in its higher speed, allowing it to outrun most non-cavalry units which may try to attack it, and potentially complete more trips without being killed.
Tactics[]
Early game[]
For the Abbasid Dynasty, Ageing up with the Trade Wing and starting a trade route is one of the primary two methods of expanding the player's economy, the other being Ageing up with the Economic Wing and building additional Town Centers to create Villagers. A discounted Abbasid Dynasty Town Center creating discounted but unupgraded Villagers takes at least 3 minutes and 52 seconds to pay off, not counting walking time, which in practice would easily push the payback time over 4 minutes, although the Golden Age gather rate bonus can improve this. By comparison, a Market creating Trade Caravans will take approximately 5 minutes to pay off if the trade route covers an entire map edge, although this does not include the resource gain from the free Traders from the Age-up. While the best-case payback times are overall likely to be greater for the Trade Route, the lower up-front cost of the Market makes trade easier to scale up with multiple Markets, and if left undisturbed, Trade from multiple markets can nearly always outboom a multiple Town Center strategy. However, since efficient trade requires traversing the entire edge of the map, it is inherently harder to defend than having multiple Town Centers that can be used as defensive structures. So while both strategies are viable, which one to ultimately choose depends on the map being played and the opponent's civilization. The following general guidelines can be used when deciding whether or not to trade in the early game.
- It is harder to defend a trade route versus aggressive, cavalry-oriented civilizations such as the Rus and French than against slower infantry-focused civilizations such as the English and Holy Roman Empire or civilizations that often boom with multiple town centers, such as the Chinese. The increased speed of the Trade Caravan over the Trader especially makes their trade routes nearly unraidable by infantry.
- Maps where Trade Posts always spawn on the corners with the map edge (trade route) behind the player, such as Altai, Prairie, or The Pit make trade pay off quicker and easier to defend. On team games, because allied markets can always be built on the corners, the map does not matter as much (although because of the extra 20% return, players should still trade with neutral Trade Posts if they're located on the corners).
For the Ayyubids, the same general principles apply, although with no discount on Villagers or Town Centers, the payback time on Trade vs multiple Town Centers will be more favorable compared to the Abbasid Dynasty. This is especially true if the Bazaar branch of the Trade Wing provides multiple discounted Trade Caravan purchases. However the Ayyubids also lack the Trade Wing technologies to boost trade, so they inherently do not boom nearly as well as the Abbasid Dynasty, and it may be more advantageous to forego creating Trade Caravans in the early game to focus on other more aggressive strategies such as a fast Castle or Feudal Age aggression with Desert Raiders through the Military Wing.
Late game[]
Because trade provides an infinite supply of gold, it is nearly always worth it to begin creating Trade Caravans once gold on the map starts to run out, replacing Villagers as they go idle. At this stage of the game, the cost of a Trade Caravan will have a smaller impact on the overall economy, making it less risky to create them. Furthermore, unlike in the early game, where there are several other strategic alternatives, the late-game alternative is simply running out of gold, which will leave a player unable to create strong units and at a significant disadvantage to a player with gold. In the case where players have entrenched themselves on the map and trade routes are more well defended, the lower income per minute of the Trade Caravan over the Trader will be more impactful, and the Trade Caravan's increased speed will not matter as much. This is an especially large detriment to the Ayyubids, whereas the Abbasids can make up the difference with their unique trade technologies.
Further statistics[]
| Technologies | |
|---|---|
| Hit points |  Biology (+25%) Public Libraries (+2 for each economic technology researched,  Abbasid Dynasty)
|
| 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) Armored Caravans (+3 melee/ranged, Abbasid Dynasty)
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| Trade return: Gold |  Spice Roads (+30%, Abbasid Dynasty)
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| Trade return: secondary resource |  Grand Bazaar (+25% food or wood, Abbasid Dynasty)
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| Other |  Trade Wing - Bazaar (Can hire traders at a discounted cost depending on Age researched,  Ayyubids)
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| Aura enhancements | |
| Creation speed |  Golden Age Tier 3 (+20%)
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- Note: While Trade Caravans are classified as camels, they are not affected by military technologies such as Infantry Support or Camel Support
Dialogue lines[]
Trade Caravans use the same dialogue lines as Villagers.
Campaign version[]
The unit model for the Trade Caravan is used in The Sultans Ascend for the player's civilization, but in this case it is just a reskin of the Trader, and not a separate unit.
Trivia[]
- While the original Abbasid Dynasty and Ayyubid Traders did not have female variants, the Trade Caravan does.
- Malian Traders were originally designed to ride camels, which is historically accurate, since they connected West Africa to trans-Saharan trade routes, where the camel is the superior means of transportation. It is unknown why this design was replaced with horses instead. This camel design with Malian Villagers was then repurposed for the Atabeg.
Gallery[]
