Home City

A Home City is the capital city of a civilization that delivers economic and military shipments to a player's in-game colony, adding extra functionality to normal gameplay. The Home City concept is a feature first introduced in Age of Empires III.

Overview
Home Cities enable more diverse game-style decision-making, where players can ship a variety of economic, land military and naval-oriented units or technology upgrades. Furthermore, players are also able to customize European Home Cities.

Each civilization has its own unique Home City, the real-life city locations of each are the following:


 * British: London
 * Dutch: Amsterdam
 * French: Paris
 * Germans: Berlin
 * Ottomans: Istanbul
 * Portuguese: Lisbon
 * Russians: St. Petersburg (St. Basil's Cathedral, located in Moscow, appears in the background)
 * Spanish: Seville (Torre del Oro, the Spanish Wonder from Age of Empires II: The Conquerors, can be seen in its background)

In The WarChiefs expansion, only the Aztecs have an actual city - the other civilizations are represented through Tribal Councils.
 * Aztecs: Tenochtitlan
 * Iroquois: Caughnawaga
 * Sioux: Hunkpapa

In The Asian Dynasties expansion, the civilizations have:
 * Chinese: Peking/Beijing
 * Indians: Delhi
 * Japanese: Edo

Cards and decks
Every civilization has a unique assortment of improvements, units, and resources that are called Cards, which can be sent to the "New World" colony as shipments. The higher the player's Home City level is the more Cards are available for use. The cards are also available by Ages, such as troops start coming in during the Colonial Age while artillery start coming in at the Fortress Age.

There are five categories of cards, represented by a building in the Home City for European and Asian civilizations:


 * Economic resources
 * Military upgrades
 * Building upgrades
 * Economic upgrades
 * Naval upgrades and mercenaries

All of the cards for a Home City are put in a group called a deck. A deck can contain 20 cards plus one extra for every ten levels, to a maximum of 25. This forces players to make decisions and to only use the cards they believe to be the most important.

Cost
Certain cards, such as those of mercenaries, cost a particular resource to account for the greater power of the card. This resource is usually Coin but can also be Wood or Food.

Experience Points
Experience points are points gained by destroying enemy units, buildings, building units or buildings, picking up Treasures, or gained slowly over time. Some buildings can produce constant experience as well, specifically Shrines, Sacred Fields, Mosques, Toshogu Shrine, Torii Gates, and Trading Posts built upon a Trade Route. Experience can also be purchased via an upgrade at the Church, and Mosque.

The amount gained from training Settlers, Villagers, and Fishing Boats is 5% of the cost, Coureur des Bois, Cree Coureur des Bois, and Settler Wagons are 10%. Experience from training military units is also 10% of the cost. Constructing buildings grants 20% of the original cost.

The amount gained from killing all economic units is 10% of the cost, the same as military units. Destroying buildings grants twice the experience as constructing them.

Cost reduction cards for units, or buildings do not reduce the experience gained from constructing them. Therefore some combinations of cards, and upgrades can effectively allow significant experience boosts from construction to be purchased at a very low cost (e.g. Land Grab, Advanced Plantation, and Cree Textile Craftsmanship for 96% cheaper Plantations (32 Wood) and granting 160 experience every 12 seconds, equivalent to 13.3 experience a second).

First Eight Shipments

 * First - 300, 219 (Spain), 330 (Germans)
 * Second - 345/645 (cumulative), 252/471, 380/710
 * Third - 397/1042, 290/760, 436/1046
 * Fourth - 456/1498, 333/1094, 502/1698
 * Fifth - 525/2023, 383/1477, 577/2225
 * Sixth - 604/2627, 443/1920, 662/2887
 * Seventh - 693/3320, 513/2423, 757/3644
 * Eighth - 792/4112, 593/3016, 862/4506

Levels
All Home Cities begin at level 1 and are provided with 15 cards. As more XP is gained the Home City is able to level up and a new card can be added to the deck.

Choosing cards must be done carefully and a certain amount of strategy must be used.

Many cards must be unlocked through reaching a certain level Home City before becoming available. Some cards can also require other cards as prerequisites. Focusing on specific units or technologies minimizes the amount of cards that need to be purchased.

Customization
There are several ways the Home City can be customized so it looks unique from any other player's Home City. Customizations are varied; some provide entertainment to the streets of the Home City (Jugglers, Artists, Drunks...), or even market vendors and nobles. The design the buildings can be modified through the building color, adding "Market Day" flags, etc.

Available only to European civilizations from the vanilla game, customizations are unlocked as the Home City level increases.