Lumber Camp (Age of Empires II)

A Lumber Camp is a building in Age of Empires II that serves as a depot for wood collecting. It can be built once the player has a Town Center for the cost of 100 Wood and is available to all civilizations.

Technologies
At the Lumber Camp three technologies may be researched in order to increase the rate at which villagers chop wood.

Feudal Age

 * Double-Bit Axe (Villagers chop wood 20% faster).

Castle Age
Bow Saw (Villagers chop wood an additional 20% faster).

Imperial Age

 * Two-Man Saw (Villagers chop wood an additional 10% faster).

Tactics and Placement
It is advantageous to build Lumber Camps near forests so that the villagers will be able to transport wood to the Lumber Camp quickly. Leaving 1 tile of space between the forest and the lumber camp is the most efficient spot as it shortens the distance for the villagers while optimize the surface for the lumber camp to get the wood.

As in the dark age the most valuable resources are wood and food most players build a lumber camp very early on the game once they chopped out all the trees around the town center (that in most maps are 3 or 4). As this building only cost 100 wood it is used also to cover the building prerequisite to age up to Feudal Age, along with the Mill and this is the cheapest way to cover this requisite.

Civilization Bonuses

 * Chinese: Lumber Camp technologies are 10%/15%/20% cheaper in Feudal/Castle/ Imperial age.
 * Japanese: Lumber Camp are 50% cheaper.
 * Spanish: Lumber Camps are built 30% faster.
 * Byzantine Lumber Camps have 10%/20%/30%/40% more hp in Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial age. Town Watch (+4 LOS for buildings) is free.

History
''The great forests of Dark Age Europe were an important natural resource that was converted into wood for building and firewood for fuel. Lumber was cut from tree logs at a lumber camp. The early lumber camps were highly labor-intensive. A log was laid perpendicular to the ground above a pit. With one man above ground and one in the pit, a long iron saw was used to rip boards from the log. In the Middle Ages, better technology was developed to use water or animal power to drive iron saws and increase productivity.''