| “ | Heavy artillery that fires a rocket and is good against infantry or buildings. | ” |
| —In-game description | ||
The Rocket is an artillery unit in Age of Empires III that is unique to the British, which replaces the Heavy Cannon, and can only be trained at the Factory or shipped from the Home City.
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Overview[]
Rockets are an artillery unit available to the British and the campaign version of the United States. They replace Heavy Cannon for the former, while the latter can train them from the Artillery Foundry as with any regular artillery piece. In the case of the British, they are one of the two unique units produced from the Factory, the other being the Great Bombard. They have a faster rate of fire than both the Heavy Cannon and the Great Bombard. They are as effective against infantry units as they are against buildings due to their high rate of fire and high attack. They are also more effective against cavalry due to a lack of damage penalty against them.
Hidden cost (British)[]
Producing Rockets at a Factory requires 90 seconds (85.5 with Chinese TEAM Engineering School card). The average resource gather rate of a Factory is 5.5 every second (before the building upgrade (+20%)). This means that the Rocket, while appearing to be free, will have a cost dependent upon how effective the Factory gathers a needed resource. In many cases, this cost can exceed the base value of the unit.
Upgrades[]
| Age | Upgrade | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
 Imperial Rockets
|
1,500 wood 1,500 coin |
Upgrade Rockets to Imperial (+50% hit points and attack) |
Civilization differences[]
- The Maya can get Rockets through the "British Weapon Trade" Home City Card.
- The Indians can get Rockets through the "2 Mysorean Rockets" Home City Card, which have +10% hit points and attack bonuses with unique visuals, and are upgraded automatically.
- The United States can get Rockets through the "5 Captured Rockets" Home City Card.
Further statistics[]
| Unit strengths and weaknesses | |
|---|---|
| Strong vs. | Most units, buildings |
| Weak vs. | Cavalry, shock infantry, Culverins, Arrow Knights |
| Improvements | |
| Hit points |  Professional Gunners (+10%) Tar Kilns (+5%)
|
| Attack |  Smokeless Powder (+5%) Heated Shot (+50% multiplier vs. ships) Somali Ajuran Engineers (+20% multiplier vs. Frontier Fortification)
|
| Line of Sight |  Gunner's Quadrant (+6) Town Watch (+3)
|
| Speed |  Trunion (+15%) Apache Endurance (+5%)
|
| Train time |  Mass Production (-25%) Immigrants (-5%)
|
| Other |  Meritocracy (-20% upgrade cost) British Army (ships 3 Imperial Rockets; Hausa only)
|
Home City Cards[]
- Click for a list of Home City Cards related to the Rocket
Changelog[]
Age of Empires III[]
- Rockets are trained in 98 seconds.
- Rockets' projectiles have a velocity of 30.
- Rockets have no multiplier against infantry.
Definitive Edition[]
- Rockets are now trained in 90 seconds.
- Rockets' projectiles now have a velocity of 45.
Knights of the Mediterranean[]
- With update 13.27885, Rockets have a x1.5 multiplier against infantry.
History[]
| “ | The first rockets used in warfare were developed by the Chinese and Indians. The principle is not dissimilar to a bottle rocket, where explosive propellant (gunpowder) propels a missile (the rocket) and is stabilized by a stick that extends well beyond the body of the rocket. It was William Congreve, a British officer, who developed their use for warfare in the Napoleonic era. His rockets were tubes capped by cones and filled with gunpowder and either shrapnel or shot. They were fired from structures that consisted of a ladder with supports for the body of the rocket and a frame to prop up both ladder and rocket. These were tall affairs, and needed to be, when the stick of a large rocket could be as long as 15 feet! The "rockets' red glare" in the Star-Spangled Banner, the national anthem of the US, refers to the rockets used by the British navy in their assault on Fort McHenry in 1814. | ” |
Gallery[]
8 comments
Orginal AO3 III User's Manual description of the Rocket: "A unique British artillery piece that can only be used once. They are erratic and explode spectacularly in combat. They are good against infantry and buildings."
Single-use artillery? Like a ranged Petard? That could have been interesting, if it was cheap enough (or powerful enough) to make up for the obvious drawback.
i think they missed out the AOE in the decription. i think rockets have 4 AOE.
The irony is the Congreve Rocket originated in India to begin with...it was reverse-engineered by the Brits from the ones Tipu Sultan used against them.
It should originally be called the Mysore Rocket. And those were man-portable, too, not carriage-dependent.
Wonder why such an upgrade isn't available to the Indians in Asian Dynasties...
Also rockets are pretty useless. The only reason the Indians used them is that their noise and firery explosion was great at frightening elephants. However against disciplined troops their inacuracy makes them far inferior to cannonballs.
@Marinus18 That's not true at all.
First, War Elephants were trained to be used to the loud atmosphere of war (there were many different techniques used against war elephants for anti-elephant warfare, and making loud sounds is not among them).
Second, the British and their allies didn't significantly use war elephants during the Mysorean Wars (if at all).
Third, Mysorean rockets were either an anti-infantry or anti-building weapon; they had two types of rockets they employed (one was anti-infantry with sword blades on the end and the other was an anti-building 
Sketch of the incendiary variant of Mysorean rockets
incendiary primarily designed to explode gunpowder magazines). The anti-infantry rockets would spin when in flight, acting like "flying scythes".
"They can be produced for free in a Factory."
Hm. The infobox says else. Or am I missing something?
The cost in the infobox is the one listed on the unit, but it's still free to produce it at the Factory. I think the cost is used when you train it at the Artillery Foundry in the campaign, but I don't know if this is possible in random map games.
O say does that star spangled banner yet wave...Over the land of the freee...and the home of the brave!!XD.
looks awesome, hope it is effective
It seems to be used only to attack the building...
Actually they are pretty effective destroying falconets and other artillery and masses of infantry, except culverins
Is it just me, or has no one realized that Rockets have 3x damage against ships? That means they can kill a Caravel in one hit. Seriosly. That's insane.
Yep, just noticed that too. Although Great Bombards can too.
No wait sorry apparently they don't XD
The biggest limitation when fighting ship isn't damage but range and the culverin has a greater range. Culverin's are also cheaper so people use culverins against raiding ships instead of their more expensive rockets.
I do it all the time, while culverins have more range they also do less damage and can be destroyed by the ship if it gets close
That thing just like Russian katyusha
What does it mean?
Kutyusha is actually a name for a female. The name was also that of a popular song among the Russian soldiers so they tended to call the artillery that.