The Mounted Archer is a Chinese mounted archer unit in Age of Mythology: Tale of the Dragon. Unlike most archers, it has an attack bonus against cavalry.
God bonuses and upgrades[]
Specific[]
- Houyi's Bow (Chang'e) increases attack by 10%.
General[]
Nü Wa reduces food and gold cost by 10%.
- Medium Stable Soldiers, Heavy Stable Soldiers, and Champion Stable Soldiers all increase LOS by 1 and attack by 10%, and increase hit points by 10%, 15% and 20% respectively.
- Levy Stable Soldiers and Conscript Stable Soldiers decrease training time by 20%.
- Copper Weapons, Bronze Weapons, and Iron Weapons increase attack by 10%.
- Copper Mail, Bronze Mail, and Iron Mail decrease hack vulnerability by 10%.
- Copper Shields, Bronze Shields, and Iron Shields decrease pierce vulnerability by 10%.
- Burning Pitch gives triple damage to buildings and +50% damage to ships.
- Jade Rabbit (Chang'e): increases movement speed by 10%.
- Dragon Scales (Ao Kuang): increases hack armor by 10%.
- Stirrup (Chongli) increases HP by 25%.
Strategy[]
The Mounted Archer is excellent for hit-and-run tactics against any relatively slow, non-ranged unit. Their speed and ranged attack enables them to keep up with targets trying to get away, even cavalry units. On the downside, it is technically classified as both an archer and a cavalry, and will take additional damage from counter-units of either type. This makes them especially vulnerable to towers with Crenellations researched. They receive additional damage from most standard cavalry due to their dual classification, so care must be taken to ensure they are able to fire from range. This can be mitigated slightly by using the Jade Rabbit technology to better enable hit-and-run micromanagement.
Changelog[]
Tale of the Dragon[]
- Initially, Mounted Archers have 7 pierce damage, deal 200% damage to cavalry, and cost 80 wood, 60 gold. With patch 2.7, they have 5 pierce damage, deal 300% damage to cavalry, and cost 75 wood, 55 gold.
- Initially, Mounted Archers got +20% hit points from the Tusk of the Iron Boar Relic instead of +10%. This was fixed in patch 2.7.
Trivia[]
- Mounted Archers have Track Rating of only 5.0 m/s, so despite being counter cavalry, they are not able to hit most cavalry in movement (for example the Hippikon).
- This unit's history section contains several errors: King Wuling of Zhao lived during the Warring States period, not Han. According to Stratagems of the Warring States and Records of the Grand Historian, King Wuling adopted the tactics of mounted archery from the Hu, not the Xiongnu - hence the king's own saying 胡服騎射 húfúqíshè "wearing Hu-style clothing and shooting while riding". King Wuling also did not defeat any "Wuhu state"; the polities he vanquished were Linhu (林胡), Loufan (樓煩), and Zhongshan (中山).
- The Hu (胡) people, from whom Chinese learnt mounted archery warfare, are considered ancestors, through the Xianbei and later Shiwei, of Mongols and Tatars.
History[]
“ | King Wuling of Zhao revolutionized Chinese warfare during the Han dynasty when he officially adopted the tactics and equipment of the Xiongnu people of the steppes: instead of stationing archers in chariots, he enacted military reforms to adopt the use of more versatile cavalry archers. He succeeded in emulating the battlefield successes of the Xiongnu, taking many cities of the neighboring Wuhu state before abdicating in favor of his son in 299 BC. | ” |