Home City

A Home City is the capitol city of your civilization that provides you with economic and military shipments. The Home Cities were a new addition which was first featured in Age of Empires III.

Game Info
Every civilization has it's own unique Home City which looks different from the other Home Cities. The Home City adds depth to the Age of Empires series every way you play the game. Through the Home Cities you and the enemy can choose and send shipments to your colony, which could change the outcome of the game. If you want to build up your military you can send military-oriented shipments. If you wish to rule by sea you can select naval shipments. The Home Cities makes every game you play full of different decisions and situations. You also have a choice of renaming your Home City whatever you want it to be called.

The real-city locations of the Home Cities are the following:


 * British: London
 * Dutch: Amsterdam
 * French: Paris
 * Germans: Berlin
 * Ottomans: Istanbul
 * Portuguese: Lisbon
 * Russians: St. Petersburg
 * Spanish: Seville

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

There are five categories of cards, represented by a building in the Home City:


 * Trading Company - Economic units and resources
 * Military Academy - Soldiers and Military upgrades
 * Cathedral - Building - improvements
 * Manufacturing Plant - Advanced economic upgrades
 * Harbor - Naval upgrades and mercenaries

All of the cards for a Home City is put in a group called a deck. The decks can hold up to 20 different types of cards, but the Home City starts out with a default deck of 15 cards. Because of this limit of the number of cards the player must plan their decks carefully.

Experience Points
Experience Points, or "XP", are points you gain by destroying enemy units and buildings, building units or buildings, picking up treasures, or just simply being in the game. It's actually a fourth resource that you must collect over time, much like Favor in Age of Mythology. XP automatically generates, but not nearly fast enough to give you immediate shipments. The amount of XP gained from training or killing units varies; destroying a Falconet will obviously provide more XP than killing a Musketeer. Buildings follow a similar pattern, large, expensive buildings are worth more XP than smaller, cheaper ones. A common misconception is that Home Cities provide free shipments, so you don't have to try as hard. However, XP limits the amount of shipments you can send at a time and forces you to earn them as the game progresses.

Once you acquire a certain amount of XP, you earn a shipment. As the game progresses, each additional shipment requires a greater amount of XP. Want more XP? Try to secure a monopoly on Trade Posts. Each generates a small amount of XP at every pass, providing you experience without having to fight for it. However, if you want to get a lot of XP, conflict is the best method.

Levels
All Home Cities begin at level 1 and is provided 15 cards. As you gain more XP, your Home City is able to level up. Each time you level up, you can add a new card to your deck after the game. To accumulate the most XP out of any game, make sure to manage your army and economy well as you thoroughly crush your opponent's.

When faced with the decision of choosing which new cards to select, always consider the opportunity cost and how it affects your strategy. You can try to rush your opponents early on by stacking military shipments, but in doing so, you give up other cards, such as shipments of settlers, which could have helped stabilize your economy should your preemptive strike fail. Because every choice comes with its consequences, think carefully before purchasing new cards.

Many cards must be unlocked (usually after your Home City reaches a certain level) before you can purchase them. Some cards can also require you to purchase other cards as prerequisites. By focusing on specific units or technologies, you can minimize the number of new cards you have to buy.

Customization
There will be several ways you can customize your Home City so it looks unique from any other player's Home City. Customizations are varied; you can add entertainment to the streets of your HC (Jugglers, Artists, Drunks...), or even market vendors and nobles. You can even design the buildings by changing the building color, adding "Market Day" flags, etc. Ensemble's aim was to make the customizations unique and varied enough so you can distinctly tell the Home City of one player from another's. Of course, the customizations are purely cosmetic -- they only affect the look of your Home City, nothing more.

You gain customizations by earning them, which aligns with earning cards with levels. Every new level lets you select a new customization.

Mercenaries
Mercenary units are a special shipment from your Home City (The Harbor), acting as a very powerful version of your typical units. Jaegar's, for example, are powerful Skirmisher units, while Swiss Pikemen are advanced Pikemen units. Unlike their counterparts in Age of Mythology, however, the Mercenaries in Age of Empires III do not disappear shortly after their creation. Instead, they can only be shipped in groups, and can only be shipped once unless you reach the Imperial Age. In order to ship Mercenaries, you must be either in the Fortress or Industrial Age (depending on the Merc) and fork over large amounts of coin. While they may be expensive and difficult to obtain, Mercenaries are easily more powerful than any common soldiers and are definitely worth the price. Under intense attack from the enemy? Hire a band of Mercenaries to fight off your foe. After your Home City level reaches 10, you will be able to unlock the ability to ship over armies of Mercenaries.