This article is about the building in Age of Empires II. For the building in other games of the series, see 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.
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, Mayans have their farmers' work rate reduced to 81% of a generic civilization. Slavs' farms have their work rate multiplied by x1.15 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, Folwark, 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). Treadmill Crane and Spanish civilization bonus speed up the re-seeding process.
Build rate bonus[note 1] | 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[]
Food amount | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Construction speed | ![]() |
Civilization bonuses[]
Burgundians: Economic technologies that benefit Farms are available one age earlier and cost -33% food.
Byzantines: Farms have +10%/+20%/+30%/+40% hit points in the Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
Chinese: Technologies that benefit Farms are 5%/10%/15% cheaper in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
Franks: Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, and Crop Rotation are free.
Japanese: Mills are 50% cheaper.
Khmer: Farms do not require a Mill and farmers do not require dropsites.
Mayans: The food on Farms lasts 15% longer.
Poles: Can build Folwarks, which collect 8% of food from future seeded farms in its aura range instantly.
Romans: Farms are built and repaired 5% faster. Farmers work 5% faster.
Sicilians: Farm upgrades provide +125% additional food to Farms before they need to be reseeded.
Slavs: Farmers work 15% faster.
Spanish: Farms are built 30% faster. Researching technologies that benefit Farms provides 20 gold each.
Teutons: Farms are 40% cheaper.
Vietnamese: Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, and Crop Rotation do not cost wood.
Team bonuses[]
Chinese: Farms provide +10% food.[note 2]
Portuguese: Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, Crop Rotation, and Treadmill Crane are researched 25% faster.
Changelog[]
The Age of Kings[]
The Conquerors[]
Mayans: The food on Farms lasts 20% longer.
The Forgotten[]
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 to –5% with update 42848.
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 do not cost wood.
Portuguese: With update 42848, as a civilization bonus, technologies that benefit Farms are researched 30% faster.
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[]
Portuguese: With update 73855, as a team bonus, technologies that benefit Farms are researched 25% faster.
Sicilians: With update 81058, Farm upgrades provide +125% food.
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 Mayans with a Chinese ally extract 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 upgrades are researched, which makes it quite comparable to non-Malay Fish Traps.
- The Sicilians with a Chinese ally have the farms with the largest amount of food, with a total of 1,130 with all farm upgrades 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 upgrades 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.
- Farms (and Fish Traps) are the only buildings which can be repaired by Monks (and Missionaries), but only Monks of the same player owning the Farm or Fish Trap (not allies'). In the case of Farms, it still costs the same amount of wood to repair the same amount of damage, but one Monk can repair the Farm several times faster than one Villager, and from their healing range. Monks do not start repairing the player's Farms automatically, unlike healing nearby allied units.
- 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.
Gallery[]
Notes[]
- ↑ Build rate modifiers have an inverse effect on build time (e. g.: ×1.2 build rate modifier (Treadmill Crane) multiplies the construction time by 1/1.2 = 0.833…).
- ↑ Before update 125283, the actual food available from a Farm had slightly unexpected values when the Chinese team bonus was applied:
Farm
technologiesFood amount Actual bonus rate Generic With the Chinese
team bonusExpected
(Generic × 1.10)Actual None 175 192.5 192 (192.5 floored) +10.00% Horse Collar
250 275 277 +10.80% Heavy Plow
375 412.5 418 +11.47% Crop Rotation
550 605 614 +11.64% With update 125283, the issue was resolved and the food values in the Farms are as expected.