Coinage (Age of Empires II)

This article is about the technology in Age of Empires II. For other uses of the term, see Coinage.

Coinage
Availability
Introduced in	Age of Empires II
Civilization	All civilizations
Age	Castle Age
Research
Researched at	Market
Required for	Banking
Food	200
Gold	100
Research time	70 seconds
Effect
Tribute fee reduced to 20%

Coinage is a technology in Age of Empires II available at the Market upon reaching the Castle Age*. Once researched, it reduces the tribute fee from 30% to 20%. Coinage comes in handy if players intend to send resources to other players.

This technology pays out food-wise if more than 2,000 food is tributed after researching it, and gold-wise if more than 1,000 gold is tributed after researching it.

Banking is the further upgrade of this technology.

Further statistics

Civilization bonuses
Resource cost	Chinese (-10%/-15% in the Castle/Imperial Age)
Other	Spanish (receive 20 gold after researching Coinage)

Team bonuses
Research speed	Bohemians (+80%) Portuguese (+25%)

Changelog

The Age of Kings

• Coinage costs 150 food, 50 gold.
• Coinage takes 50 seconds to research.
• Coinage becomes available in the Feudal Age.

The African Kingdoms

• Coinage costs 200 food, 100 gold.
• Coinage takes 70 seconds to research.

Rise of the Rajas

• With patch 5.8, Coinage now becomes available in the Castle Age.

Definitive Edition

• Portuguese: With update 42848, Coinage is researched 30% faster as a civilization bonus.

Dynasties of India

• Portuguese: With update 73855, Coinage is researched 25% faster as a team bonus.

Trivia

• In the Definitive Edition, the icon of the technology says "Forgotten Empires Rex", an obvious reference to the Forgotten Empires team.
• Coinage is a cheat code in Age of Empires (provides 1,000 gold).
• Despite being an economic technology, Coinage and Banking are not affected by the Burgundian and Vietnamese bonuses. This is likely for balance reasons, as they could obtain a Castle/Imperial Age economy for the purposes of sling tactics, without needing to pay for said Age.

History

“

Money degraded during the Dark Ages in Western Europe because the barbarian tribes that took control were largely illiterate and had no system of government that could administer the making of coins. Those coins that exist from this era are very crude copies of Roman coins and usually of low-value metals. The rise of Charlemagne's empire and other strong kings created the stable administrations that could successfully provide coinage. A stable and available supply of money was a great boost to economic growth. The most useful European coins were silver pennies, roughly the size of the modern U.S. 10-cent piece, and smaller denominations made of copper and bronze.

”