Farm (Age of Empires II)

This article is about the building in Age of Empires II. For the building in other games of the series, see Farm.

Farm
Building
Information
Introduced in	Age of Empires II
Type	Economic
Civilization	All except Khitans
Age	Dark Age
Use	Provide food
Construction
Requires	Mill Folwark (Poles only)
Wood	60
Build time	15 seconds
Statistics
Size	3×3 tiles
Hit points	480
Melee armor	0
Pierce armor	0
Armor classes	Building Standard building
Line of Sight	1
Notes
When a Farm is completely harvested, it is replaced by a Dead Farm which can be right-clicked by a Villager to build a new Farm

“	A renewable source of food. Provides a limited amount of food before it goes fallow and must be rebuilt.	”
—Age of Empires II description

The Farm is an economic building in Age of Empires II. It provides a base amount of 175 food. With all farming upgrades researched, a generic Farm provides 550 food in the Imperial Age.

The Farm is available to all civilizations except the Khitans, who have the Pasture instead.

Tactics and placement

Farms may only be gathered from by one Villager at a time. Farms are very weak and do not hinder movements of friendly or enemy troops. If a Farm is not currently being tended, another player's Villager can capture it by simply starting to gather from it themselves. Farms can be automatically reseeded if they are queued in the Mill.

Ideally, eight Farms should be built around Town Centers and Mills like this

Farms should always be placed right next to Town Centers or Mills/Folwarks, in order to keep the walking distances of the Villagers as short as possible. The Poles should prioritize building Farms around a Folwark, due to instant collection ability. The Khmer may build Farms around their House to combine their bonus of farmers not needing a drop site and Villagers garrisoning in Houses. The Georgians can improve their farming rate by 10% by placing Farms near a Fortified Church.

Farms that are built before upgrades (e.g. Horse Collar) are researched do not gain the food bonus. If the research is completed while a Farm is being built, the food bonus applies to that Farm. Villagers building a Farm drop off any resource they are holding at the Farm once it is built (not only food, but also wood, gold, and stone). The Khmer can use this feature to good effect, because their farmers do not need drop-off sites.

Farms have an inherent work rate of 0.4 food per second. This means they will produce 0.4 food per second upon being seeded and will add it up in their "storage", from which Villagers can gather food. This becomes essential if the farm is worked non-stop after being seeded, as typically Villagers' work rate exceeds Farms' work rate after Hand Cart is researched (Aztecs and to a lesser degree Khmer hit this farm-rate cap upon researching Wheelbarrow). This ultimately results into similar food production (0.4 food per second per farmer) for all civilizations (except for Slavs) in a Post-Imperial scenario, even though, for example, Maya have their farmers' work rate reduced to 81% of a generic civilization. Slavs' farms have their work rate multiplied by ×1.15 in addition to their Villagers' work rate multiplied by ×1.28 which allows them to have ~15% higher farming rates in most circumstances.

Assisted Farm placement

With update 111772, Farms can be automatically placed around a Mill, Farm, Folwark, Pasture, or Town Center by holding Shift (LT for Xbox) and clicking the Farm over the building. This placement also works while said building is still under construction.

Comparison to the Fish Trap

Farmers gather relatively faster from Farms than Fishing Ships gather from Fish Traps, however up until the late Imperial Age they are less effective cost-wise (also considering that Fishing Ships themselves cost wood). The actual gathering speed between them may vary due to traffic between gatherers and actual Farm/Fish Trap placement.

Building	Overall food provided	Food generated per wood
Farm	175	2.92
Farm + Horse Collar	250	4.17
Farm + Heavy Plow	375	6.25
Farm + Crop Rotation	550	9.17
Fish Trap	715	7.15

Farm (re-)seed time

Basic farm re-seed time is 15 seconds (×1.0 game speed). Spanish and Roman civilization bonuses, as well as Treadmill Crane, speed up the re-seeding process.

Build rate bonus	Time
None	15
Treadmill Crane	12.5
Spanish civilization bonus	11.5

In comparison, Fish Traps have a construction/"re-seed" time of 40 seconds. It is decreased to 32 seconds with Gillnets and is also affected by the Japanese civilization bonus (both stack multiplicatively together, up to ~26.7 sec construction time for Japanese in the Imperial Age).

Further statistics

Technologies
Food amount	Horse Collar (+75, +169 for the Sicilians) Heavy Plow (+125, +281 for the Sicilians) Crop Rotation (+175, +394 for the Sicilians)
Build speed	Treadmill Crane (+20%)

Aura and ability enhancements
Ability	Folwark (10% food from new Farms collected instantly, Poles only)

Civilization bonuses
Hit points	Byzantines (+10%/+20%/+30%/+40% in the Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age)
Resource cost	Teutons (-40%)
Build speed	Romans (+5%) Spanish (+30%)
Other	Khmer (Farms do not require Mills to build) Maya (food on Farms lasts 15% longer) Romans (+5% repair speed)

Team bonuses
Other	Georgians (repairing costs -25%)

Civilization bonuses

• Burgundians: Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, and Crop Rotation are available one Age earlier and cost -33% food.
• Chinese: Horse Collar and Heavy Plow are 5%/10%/15% cheaper in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
• Franks: Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, and Crop Rotation are free.
• Italians: Treadmill Crane is 33% cheaper.
• Jurchens: Treadmill Crane costs -75% wood and researches 100% faster.
• Khmer: Farmers do not require drop-off sites.
• Romans: Farmers work 5% faster.
• Slavs: Farmers work 15% faster.
• Spanish: Horse Collar and Heavy Plow provide 20 gold each when researched.
• Vietnamese: Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, and Crop Rotation cost no wood and research 100% faster.
• Wei: Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, and Crop Rotation provide one free Villager each when researched.

Team bonuses

• Chinese: Farms provide +10% food.
• Malians: Treadmill Crane researches 80% faster.
• Portuguese: Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, Crop Rotation, and Treadmill Crane research 25% faster.

Changelog

The Age of Kings

• Chinese: The team bonus is Farms start with +45 food.
• Teutons: Farms cost -33% (40 wood).

The Conquerors

• Maya: The food on Farms lasts 20% longer.

The Forgotten

• Maya: The food on Farms lasts 15% longer.
• Slavs: Farmers intended to work 15% faster.

The African Kingdoms

• Malians: Initially, Farms are 15% cheaper. With patch 4.8, the wood bonus no longer applies to Farms.
• Slavs: Farmers correctly work 15–18% faster.

Rise of the Rajas

• Farms built on the "Mangrove Shallows" terrain automatically become Rice Farms, which have identical stats.

Definitive Edition

• Khmer: With update 34699, Farmers no longer require a drop-off site and stockpile food instantly. Khmer farmers' gather rate -3% with update 36906 and -5% with update 42848.
• Portuguese: With update 42848, technologies that benefit Farms research 30% faster as a civilization bonus.
• Slavs: Farmers work 10% faster.
• Teutons: With update 35584, Farms cost -40% (36 wood).
• Vietnamese: With update 35584, Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, and Crop Rotation cost no wood.

Lords of the West

• Burgundians: With update 47820, Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, and Crop Rotation cost -50% food.
• Sicilians: Farm upgrades provide +100% food.

Dawn of the Dukes

• Chinese: With update 51737, the team bonus is Farms start with +10% food.

Dynasties of India

• Burgundians: With update 66692, Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, and Crop Rotation cost -40% food. With update 78174, they cost -33% food.
• Portuguese: With update 73855, technologies that benefit Farms research 25% faster as a team bonus.
• Sicilians: With update 81058, Farm upgrades provide +125% food.

Return of Rome

• Vietnamese: With update 87863, Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, and Crop Rotation are researched 100% faster.

The Mountain Royals

• Slavs: Farmers work 15% faster.

History

“	The technology of farming was carried forward into the Middle Ages and improved. Northern European soils were often rich glacial deposits hidden under dense forests. Over the course of the Middle Ages, much of this land was cleared and converted into farms. Key technology improvements in farming were the improved horse harness, the heavy plow, and crop rotation. The new horse harness did not choke the animal and increased pulling power. The heavy plow could cut into the dense soils. Farms in Europe were largely communal affairs where each family received the produce of several rows in the field. The production of some rows went directly to the local lord as his rent.	”
—Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings manual

Trivia

• Farms are the only buildings visible to opponents when their foundations are placed (at 1 hit point). This makes them prone to enemy attacks, and any single attack at this point destroys them, which is a loss of 60 wood for the player.
• The Maya with a Chinese ally extract the most food out of a Farm (with the exception of the Sicilians), that is 550 × 1.1 × 1.15 food = 696 food after all Mill technologies are researched, which makes it quite comparable to non-Malay Fish Traps.
• The Sicilians with a Chinese ally have the Farms with the most food, with a total of 1,130 with all Farm technologies researched.
• The Teutons with a Chinese ally have the most cost effective Farms (with the exception of the Sicilians), producing 16.8 food/wood after all Mill technologies are researched.
• Byzantine Farms have the highest hit points among all Farms, because Farms are not affected by Masonry/Architecture, but are affected by their civilization bonus.
• Prior to update 50292, Villagers would only walk in a 2×2 square, which meant that the farmers would not walk in any of the tiles adjacent to the top-right or bottom-right edges. Therefore, placing Farms to the right side of the Town Center or Mill first used to be slightly more efficient, as it reduced walking time. Now, the square is centered in the middle of the farm.
• Khitan Villagers can be tasked to take over another player's Farm. When the Farm is depleted, the Khitan Villager attempts to rebuild a Pasture in its place, only if sufficient space (5×5 tiles) is available. While the Pasture is a 4×4 building, it will be centered around the current 3×3 Farm, thus occupying 2 half tiles along each edge and thus taking up 5×5 construction space.

Gallery

Farms should be built as close as possible to Mills or Town Centers

When built on mangrove shallows, Farms automatically become Rice Farms, which are identical to normal Farms

Farms, Rice Farms, and two dead Rice Farms in the Definitive Edition

Farms arranged for Mills in the closest possible proximity

Farms arranged around a Town Center and 4 Mills (exceeds garrison space by 5, requiring a tower for full safety)

Farms arranged around a Town Center and 4 Folwarks (exceeds garrison space by 17, requiring another Town Center or a Castle for full safety)

Farms around a Georgian Fortified Church for the bonus (exceeds garrison space by 12, requiring other Fortified Churches nearby)

Farms with "Pumpkin farm" skin

"Saffron farms" skin from Spicy Expeditions event

2024 AoE2 Farming Report (ranking farm bonuses)