| “ | Heavy artillery. Good against infantry or buildings. | ” |
| —In-game description | ||
The Heavy Cannon is an artillery unit in Age of Empires III that can only be trained at the Factory or shipped from the Home City.
Heavy Cannons are available to the European and Federal American civilizations except British (who have Rockets instead), Italians (who have Papal Bombards instead), John Black's Mercenaries (Act II: Ice campaign), Knights of St. John (Act I: Blood campaign), and Ottomans (who have Great Bombards instead). The Hausa can train them through the British Alliance Age-up.
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Overview[]
The Heavy Cannon is the typical heavy artillery piece for the Spanish, Portuguese, Germans, Russians, Dutch, French, Swedes and Maltese. Its power and hit points are similar to the Great Bombard, but the rate of fire is slightly faster and it has no penalties versus Cavalry. The Heavy Cannon is effective against enemy infantry and artillery units.
Overall, a Heavy Cannon (1 on 1) would have a good chance to beat a Great Bombard with full health, though it would rely on the Heavy Cannon getting two shots off (12 seconds) before the Bombard began attacking the Heavy Cannon. This is realistically possible due to the Heavy Cannon's smaller penalty versus other artillery and its greater rate of fire. Other common factors such as battlefield confusion, varying levels of micromanagement skill and line of sight advantages allow this scenario to occur frequently. The population cost of this unit is 7.
The The General Imperial Age politician provides two Heavy Cannons for the Dutch, French, Germans, and Spanish.
Hidden cost[]
The Heavy Cannon has a base cost of 200 wood, 600 coin, and a train time of 115 seconds (103.5 seconds with "Engineering School", 109.25 seconds with "TEAM Engineering School" Home City Card, 92 seconds with both), while the Factory generates 5.5 (7.15 with the respective improvements) resources every second.
Therefore, a Factory producing a Heavy Cannon uses up 632.5 resources (475.75 with "Engineering School" or "TEAM Engineering School", 379.5 with both); with all three of the respective improvements, the value goes up to 822.5 (618.475 with "Engineering School" or "TEAM Engineering School", 493.35 with both).
This means for the majority of civilizations, especially those lacking significant damage potential with Heavy Cannon, it is very economically damaging to create them. Improvements and Home City Cards that reduces artillery train time will also affect the Factory, whereas no economic cards do the same. With "Engineering School" or "TEAM Engineering School", the bonus for Heavy Cannon is only 15% whereas regular artillery will train 70% faster (30% faster for civilizations lacking their "Engineering School"), fielding much quicker.
Upgrades[]
| Age | Upgrade | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
 Imperial Cannon
|
1,500 wood 1,500 coin |
Upgrade Heavy Cannons to Imperial Cannons (+50% hit points and attack) |
Civilization differences[]
The Chinese can get Heavy Cannons by the following ways:
- Allying with the Russians at the Consulate, which provides the shipment of one Factory Wagon, allowing the Chinese player to build a single Factory and train Heavy Cannons.
- Allying with the Germans at the Consulate which provides the German Expeditionary Army that includes 1 Heavy Cannon. Unlike their regular counterpart, these Heavy Cannons are automatically upgraded in the Industrial Age and the Imperial Age (see here for the exact values).
- The Hausa can receive 1 Imperial Cannon when allying with the British and can train them at the Palaces through British Artillery Engineers.
Since Knights of the Mediterranean, any civilization (except the British, Italians, and Ottomans) can train Heavy Cannons by allying with the House of Hanover and researching the Victorian Era, which ships a Factory Wagon, allowing the player to build a Factory.
Further statistics[]
| Unit strengths and weaknesses | |
|---|---|
| Strong vs. | Most units, buildings |
| Weak vs. | Artillery especially 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%) New Mexico Immigration (-5%)
|
| Other |  Meritocracy (-20% upgrade cost)
|
| Penalties |  Coffee Trade (-10% speed; Dutch only) High Crusade (-5% hit points; Knights of St. John only)
|
Home City Cards[]
- Click for a list of Home City Cards related to the Heavy Cannon
Trivia[]
- The Heavy Cannon was originally trained at the Artillery Foundry.
- According to pre-release screenshots, the Heavy Cannon would be available to the British. There are unused voice files for British Heavy Cannon in the game files and in the Scenario Editor, which are the same voice files used by the Rocket.
History[]
| “ | The logistics of moving, maintaining, positioning, aiming, and firing artillery required a highly drilled and disciplined team with a sharp commander. In addition to the men and artillery pieces in his command, an artillery officer had to see to the horses used to haul the pieces around - sometimes up to six for heavier guns. When one side in a battle could field hundreds of artillery pieces, the logistics of just moving them into position were taxing. "Heavy Cannon" is a relative term, but in general, cannon considered 'heavy' were typically used as permanent gun emplacements to defend Forts and strategic locations. | ” |
Gallery[]
See also[]
- Flying Crow – Chinese analogue
7 comments
That moment when you realize that Chinese have the best Heavy Cannon with all artillery + reform card (38% combat bonus) and the cannon is coming from German Consulate making it have 10% extra combat.
Most players don't realize just how powerful heavy cannons are. They're nearly 2x as powerful as a falconet for only 2 extra population slots. They do so much damage and are so hard to kill, always worth the trouble to get if you're industrial age and up against any infantry civ.
They also have a higher blast radius (4 vs. 3). They are SO much stronger than the "mass-producable" cannons it's almost not funny. The problem is actually getting them. Heavy Cannon shipments are amazing but after that you need to produce them in a factory which is actually pretty expensive (as the factory cannot produce resources in the meantime) and slooow. But one good shot makes more than up for the high effort.
Also ... massed heavy cannons are ... an experience, to say the least.
I recently realized that USA has a full 20% train time reduction on their engineering school equivalent (instead of 5% like the other euros). This means they can get a 50% reduction in train time coupled with Mass Production. Thats a 100% increase to factory efficiency when producing heavies, plus the hp buff as well. USA may be the best civ for massing heavies, as far as I can tell
USA can also get 10% from Ohio state cards and in imperial 10% from connecticut state and 5% from immigrants tech.
Only in the campaign, with Russian in Consulate, Indian factory produce Heavy Cannon
The Dutch Heavy Cannon has a high-pitched voice.
But culverins and cavalry can still take them out in large groups.
This is ignoring the Industrial Age German Home City shipment that allows the indefinite shipment of free heavy cannons
Already added to page:
Europeans
2 Heavy Cannons: Ships 2 Heavy Cannons (also +4 Uhlans for the Germans) Industrial Age, requires level 10 Home City
Faar better then GB
Area of Effect 4 while the GB has 5...i would not say that the heavy cannon is better.
i think enemies rarely group in more than 4 troops when they dealing with our artilleries, so we dont need up to 5 Area of Effect , they do not that stupid even the computer AI
The larger area of effect is off set by the HC higher rate of fire.