= Military = (6)

Learn about the Hittite military in Age of Empires IV, their powerful recurved bows, bronze weapons, and feared chariot armies.

Hittite foot troops in Age of Empires IV were adept with the powerful recurved bow and bronze-tipped arrows. Surviving artwork depicts them as stocky and bearded, wearing distinctive shoes with curled-up toes. For close combat, they employed bronze daggers, lances, spears, sickle-shaped swords, and battle-axes shaped like human hands. Their soldiers carried bronze rectangular shields and wore bronze conical helmets with ear flaps and a long extension down the back for neck protection. They were notably competent at conducting sieges and assaulting resistant cities.

The Hittites in Age of Empires IV may have been the first to adopt the horse for pulling light two-wheeled chariots, making these vehicles a staple of their field armies. Egyptian engravings of the Battle of Kadesh show three men in Hittite chariots using spears, though other evidence suggests they carried only a driver and an archer. It is possible the chariot archer replaced the chariot javelin thrower. Hittite chariot armies were greatly feared by their contemporaries.