Cherokee Basket Weaving

Cherokee Basket Weaving
Availability
Introduced in	Age of Empires III
Age	Exploration Age
Research
Researched at	Trading Post or Tambo on a Cherokee settlement
Food	100
Coin	100
Research time	10 seconds
Effect
Amalgamation, Artificial Fertilizer, Bookkeeping, Steel Traps, Seed Drill, Placer Mines, Refineries, Long Lines, Homesteading, Hunting Dogs, Gill Nets, Selective Breeding, Earth Ceremony, Earth Gift Ceremony, Rice Markets, Dike-Controlled Canals, Rice Trade, Irrigation Channels, Rice Surplus, Paddy Threshing, Imperial Bureaucracy, Civil Servants, Flume and Ditching, Blanket Filters, Yozakura Lanterns, Hanami Parties, Professional Hunters, Hunting Eagles, Green Corn Ceremony, Harvest Ceremony, Great Feast, Village Dogs, Snares, and Gold Purification cost no wood; Subsistence Farming, Swing Plow, Vegetable Carbon, Crop Rotation, New World Crops, Cash Crops cost -50% wood

“	Cherokee weaving techniques improve dry storage. Dock, Market, Mill, and Estate improvements no longer cost Wood.	”
—In-game description

Cherokee Basket Weaving is a technology in Age of Empires III that can be researched at a Trading Post or Tambo built on a Cherokee settlement. Once researched, it eliminates the wood cost from Market, Dock, Mill, Farm, Rice Paddy, Estate, and Granary technologies except the following:

• Armor Plating
• Carronade
• Percussion Lock
• Ship's Howitzers
• Large Scale Gathering
• Excessive Tribute
• Mechanized Rice Cultivation
• Collective Economy
• Large Scale Farming
• Fur Dressing
• Big Button technologies

Moreover, it halves the wood cost of the following Granary improvements:

• Subsistence Farming
• Crop Rotation
• Swing Plow
• New World Crops
• Vegetable Carbon
• Cash Crops

Strategy

• Cherokee Basket Weaving is extremely useful if one is using a water boom strategy, as economic upgrades will not cut into wood stockpiles used for training more Fishing Boats.
  • For Dutch, it is arguably better than Huron Fish Wedding; being worth 1,612.31 villager seconds (time taken, in seconds, to gather required resources with a single settler at the regular rate) versus the Huron upgrade being worth 1,650 villager seconds, including both Dock fishing upgrades. They cannot cost effectively afford the Market upgrades Blunderbuss, Great Coat (unless switching it for Placer Mines), or Amalgamation however.
• It is also useful for the Indians, due to their Villagers costing wood.
• The Dutch can make effective use of the ability as well, due to most upgrades possessing a remaining coin cost and their +15% natural gather rate bonus from mines.
• The Germans can utilize it with an early Estate, should they run low on coin, yet still reach the Fortress Age for the first upgrade available.
• The Lakota may use the technology along with a Farm wagon in the Exploration Age, aging up with the Wise Woman, and earning coin fast enough to purchase all food economic upgrades to gather from Hunts faster with a Villager than the French Coureur des Bois (with all Market technologies) can in the Commerce Age.