Garrison

Units being garrisoned in a Castle in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition.

To garrison a unit means to put it inside a building or unit.

There are several advantages to garrisoning units. Garrisoned units are safe from attacks until ungarrisoned and in Age of Empires II, will slowly heal. Once units are inside, the garrisoning building often gains an attack, or receives boosted attack values.

Units can also garrison in buildings belonging to another player that is allied with them.

Age of Empires

Garrisoning does not exist in the original Age of Empires. This makes defending early rushes particularly difficult when compared to future installments. However, land units can "garrison" inside a transport ship, and the game refers to this as "load".

Return of Rome introduced the concept of garrisoning units inside buildings. Villagers can garrison in Town Centers and towers for protection. but do not add arrows or increase the building's attack. Military units can garrison in the structure that they are trained from only when they are produced. Once ungarrisoned, they can no longer garrison in any building.

Age of Empires II

Buildings

Age of Empires II introduced the concept of garrisoning units inside buildings to the series (as a historical note, one year after StarCraft (1998) introduced the Bunker building to the RTS genre).

Units can be garrisoned in a building either by

• selecting the units the player wants garrisoned, holding ALT, and then right-clicking the building,
• selecting the units the player wants garrisoned, pressing the garrison hotkey (by default: 'T') and then either left- or right-clicking the building,
• having the right-click garrison option in the settings activated and simply selecting the units the player wants garrisoned and right-clicking the building, or
• setting the gather point of the building onto the building and then producing the unit the player wants garrisoned (production garrison)

Note that while a building is damaged to a certain extent (remaining HP ≤ 20%), it is impossible to garrison units inside it, and all units that had been garrisoned before the building was damaged are ejected from it.

There are two main types of buildings that players may use as garrisons: First, there are defensive buildings such as towers and Town Centers (alongside other defensive buildings such as Donjons and Kreposts), in which the player can freely (albeit with some restrictions based on unit type) garrison their units to take shelter in. Second, there are production buildings (such as Barracks, Archery Ranges and Siege Workshops) in which up to 10 units can only be garrisoned immediately upon their creation, by setting the gather point of the building onto the building itself. The Castle falls in both of these categories simultaneously: While Trebuchets, Organ Guns, and Hussite Wagons cannot be garrisoned in a Castle (or any other building) when they have already been ungarrisoned before, they can be garrisoned with production garrison; simultaneously, other units the Castle can build can be garrisoned there as a defensive garrison.

A list of which buildings have which garrison type(s) follows:

Defensive garrison

• Town Center: Up to 15 Villagers, foot archers, infantry, Monks, Mule Carts, and/or King (25 for the Teutons)
• All towers: Up to 5 Villagers, foot archers, infantry, Monks, Mule Carts, and/or King (10 for the Teutons)
• Donjon: Up to 10 Villagers, foot archers, infantry, Monks, and/or King
• Castle¹ and Krepost: Up to 20 Villagers, foot archers, infantry, mounted units, Monks, Mule Carts, and/or King
• House: Up to 5 Villagers and/or King (only for the Khmer)
• Dock: Up to 10 Fishing Ships (only for Gurjaras)
• Fortified Church: Up to 10 Villagers, Mule Carts, and/or King

Production garrison

• Castle¹ and Krepost: Up to 20
• Barracks²: Up to 10
• Dock ²: Up to 10
• Harbor²: Up to 10 (Malay only)
• Archery Range²: Up to 10
• Stable²: Up to 10
• Siege Workshop²: Up to 10
• Monastery²: Up to 10
• Donjon: Up to 10
• Fortified Church: Up to 10

Resource Generation Garrison

• Monastery/ Fortified Church (latter only for Armenians and Georgians): Relics for a trickle of gold and food (the latter only for Burgundians and allies)
• Mill: Herdable animals for a trickle of food (only for Gurjaras)

¹ If the gather point is set to the Castle itself, Trebuchets, Organ Guns and Hussite Wagons can be garrisoned inside as an exception to the "non-siege" classification, but these units cannot reenter after ejecting. In other words – for siege units trained there, the Castle may function as a production garrison

² Units may eject, but cannot reenter the building. Garrison limit: 10.

A Monastery with garrison, indicated by the flag on the top

Mule Carts are mobile buildings available to the Georgians and Armenians, and they can garrison inside not only Transport Ships, but also other buildings like towers, Town Centers, Fortified Churches, Castles, Donjons, and Kreposts. While garrisoned, damaged Mule Carts are repaired for free.

Advantages of garrisoning units

• While garrisoned, units are immune to damage or conversion. If the structure is destroyed or heavily damaged (remaining HP ≤ 20%), they are dropped out of the building without taking any damage to this point. If a building with units garrisoned in it gets converted, all the units that were garrisoned in the building will be automatically ejected.
• Damaged units slowly regenerate health while spending their time inside a building. Castles in particular have a faster regeneration rate than other buildings at 0.2 hit points per second. Towers, Donjons and Town Centers heal garrisoned units 0.1 hit points per second. Researching Herbal Medicine further increases the regeneration rate.
  • Buildings which can garrison a specific unit type depending on the civilization bonus cannot heal units. This means that Fishing Ships inside Gurjara Docks, Herdable Animals inside Gurjara Mills and Villagers and Kings inside Khmer Houses do not heal.
  • Relics, despite being unable to get damaged, heal inside Monasteries at 1.5 hit points per second.
  • Horses, Camels, and Bactrian Camels cannot be garrisoned inside buildings.
• Garrisoned Villagers and archers increase the damage output of Watch Towers, Guard Towers, Keeps, Bombard Towers, Castles, Town Centers, Kreposts and Donjons. That is very useful considering the fact that the garrisoned units do not take damage while dishing out plenty of their own.
• Finally, if the enemy scouts a building or has Spies researched, garrisoned units inside buildings will keep opponents guessing as to the true makeup of a player's army since there are always just flags on top of the building, no matter what kind of units or how many units are garrisoned inside.

There are special commands relating garrisoning. The player can command all Villagers to automatically find the nearest defensive garrison (or Houses in case of the Khmer) and go inside by ringing the Town Bell. Issuing the command again will send the workers to the task they were previously doing before the Town Bell was rung. This takes into account the capacities of the player's buildings. If the player does not wish to order all the Villagers to ungarrison, it is possible to order Villagers at each building to "return to work" separately.

Units tend to be ejected or ungarrisoned at the south side of the building (in front of the building sprite) unless a gather point is set, in which case they will be organized in a way that they are on the closest side of the building to the gather point.

Damage

Garrisoned units generate additional arrows according to the units inside. These additional (secondary) arrows may have different attack bonuses compared to the main arrow projectile. The number of additional arrows is denoted inside the parentheses next to the building's attack. Since update 50292, the number of additional arrows is given by the following formula:

$\frac{\sum_{unit}\left(DPS_{MainArrow}+\frac{4}{5}DPS_{SecondaryArrows}\right)}{DPS_{BuildingArrow}}$,

where DPS, the damage per second, is the quotient between the arrow's pierce damage and the reload time of the unit/building. The calculated value is rounded down to the nearest integer.

All defensive buildings have a limit to how many additional arrows they can shoot. Towers can shoot 4 additional arrows (8 for Teuton Towers; 6 for Japanese Towers with Yasama), Donjons can shoot 4 additional arrows (6/9 in the Castle/Imperial Age to a total of 7/11 additional arrows counting their natural additional arrows), Town Centers can shoot 10 arrows (15 for Teuton Town Centers and 18 for Malian Town Centers with Tigui), and Castles and Kreposts can shoot 16 additional arrows (to a total of 20 additional arrows). Teuton Bombard Towers can also shoot 3 additional cannonballs.

For the DPS of defensive buildings, a secondary arrow is considered instead of the main arrow. While this makes no difference since they all do the same damage, it did with Kreposts before update 54480 since their secondary arrows did 11 damage while the main arrow did 9 damage (now they all do 10 damage). As a result, Kreposts would shoot the same number of additional arrows as a Castle would. This distinction between main and secondary projectiles is also relevant for towers, as their secondary projectiles deal other bonus damage. This also matters in case of converted towers and Donjons, since the buildings share the same projectile, but the exact statistics of the projectile depend on upgrades, viz Guard Tower, Keep, Arrowslits, Yeomen, and Fletching-line upgrades. As such, if the post-Imperial Spanish convert a Goth Watch Tower, they would need to match their Keep's attack to add additional arrows, not the attack of the Goth Watch Tower.

Researching Thumb Ring also increases the number of additional arrows generated, since it increases the DPS of archer units. The Dravidian, Ethiopian, Mongol, and Spanish civilization bonuses have a similar effect.

Villagers and Teuton infantry (the latter provided Crenellations is researched) units contribute 2.5 DPS each. While rounding and upgrades can in some cases reduce the raw DPS, garrisoning may have other advantages such as increasing range, decreasing the effect of pierce armor, or protecting the units from attack.

Researching the Celtic unique technology Stronghold most likely decreases the number of additional arrows generated, since it increases the DPS of Castles and Towers.

Prior to update 50292, it was generally a bad idea to garrison Chu Ko Nu and Kipchaks, as the pierce damage of a secondary arrow was used to calculate the number of arrows instead of the main arrow. Since update 50292, units which fire multiple projectiles now add the correct amount of additional projectiles to fortifications when garrisoned inside them. Counting all projectiles, both main and secondary, Elite Chu Ko Nu and Elite Kipchaks have the highest DPS among all archer units and, for a Castle to fire all 20 additional arrows, it is enough to garrison 13 and 14 of them, respectively.

Units

Some units can also garrison other units:

• Transport Ship: Up to twenty units (+5 for the Saracens)
• Battering Ram: Up to six Villagers and/or foot soldiers
• Capped Ram: Up to six Villagers and/or foot soldiers
• Siege Ram: Up to six Villagers and/or foot soldiers
• Siege Tower: Up to ten Villagers and/or foot soldiers

Unlike with buildings, garrisoned units are not ejected if the garrison unit is heavily damaged. If a unit with garrison is converted, the garrisoned units are not converted, but stay inside the garrison unit. Only the new owner can eject the enemy units.

Units garrisoned in other units are not healed, even if they can regenerate.

Trivia

• The unconstructable buildings Fortress and Poenari Castle can also hold up to 30 and 25 non-siege units, respectively.
• The stats of a Teutonic Sea Tower indicate that it can hold five units inside, but no units can actually garrison in it. This is because all Teutonic towers add an additional five units to their garrison stats, but buildings have a separate property allowing different types of units to garrison. The type of units accepted by a Sea Tower is null.
• The stats of Trade Workshops and Mosques indicate that they can hold ten units, but like the Sea Tower, the buildings cannot garrison any units. The Trade Workshop has this feature since it was originally supposed to hold Villagers inside for converting resources to Trade Goods, but this idea was scrapped and the garrison count remains.
• During development, the Longboat was intended to be garrisonable like a Transport Ship.

Age of Mythology

In Age of Mythology, the buildings in which players can garrison units are:

• Town Center, Citadel Center: Up to 25 worker, foot archer, and/or infantry type units
• Dock: Up to 10 naval units
• Sentry Tower line: Up to 10 worker, foot archer, and/or infantry type units
• Manor: Up to 2 worker, foot archer, infantry type units, and/or heroes
• Fortress-type buildings: Up to 20 worker, foot archer, infantry, and/or cavalry type units
• Lighthouse: Up to 10 worker, foot archer, and/or infantry type units
• Sky Passage: Up to 100 units of any type, which can be ungarrisoned at any Sky Passage owned
• All military buildings can garrison trained units but only upon creation. The production garrison capacity is 5 for most building, not including Fortresses.

Achilles, a mounted Hero, garrisoned in a Sentry Tower

Hero units, including mounted heroes such as Achilles and Contarius Hero, or oversized heroes such as Polyphemus, can be garrisoned in any of the above listed buildings. Since Retold, Dwarven Armories have a production garrison capacity of 5, to accommodate the Dwarves spawned whenever a Thor worshipper researches an Armory technology. Similarly, Hesperides Trees now have a production garrison capacity of 5 for Dryads.

Some general rules about garrison differ from Age of Empires II. Units may only garrison into a building once its construction is completed but can enter and exit at any time. If the building is destroyed or removed, units will be ejected and line up around its perimeter or head to a gather point designated for that building, prior to being destroyed. The gather point can be another building in which units can garrison. Units garrisoned in a building will not regenerate hit points and cannot be healed by healers but they can remain within regardless of how much hit points it has left. Defensive structures (except for towers) do more damage as more units garrison in them. There needs to be at least one ship garrisoned in a Dock for it to be able to attack. Units that are garrisoned within a building are not only protected from attacks but also from all god powers. In Tale of the Dragon, Monks cannot convert units garrisoned in a building.

The following units can also garrison other units:

• Arrow ships: Up to 5
• Transport Ship: Up to 25
• Helepolis: Up to 5
• Siege Tower: Up to 5
• Leviathan: Up to 15
• Roc: Up to 20

The Helepolis and Siege Towers are the only siege weapons in which units can garrison. Prior to Retold the Helepolis gained additional attack from units garrisoned inside, while the Siege Tower did not. Since Retold, both units gain attack from garrisoned units. These are especially useful for maps with large natural obstacles, such as Jotunheim (cliffs), Islands (water), and Deep Jungle (trees). Here, players can garrison units in the siege weapons then garrison these in transport type units, reducing the amount of the latter that need to be trained. Both siege weapons can garrison up to 5 worker, foot archer, and/or infantry units.

Each civilization has its own variant of a Transport Ship. These can initially only garrison 25 units but that number is increased by +10 if Enclosed Deck is researched. Prior to Retold, the Norse arrow ship, the Longboat, was the only trainable warship that could garrison units. Since Retold, all arrow ships can garrison 5 units, which can also be increased by Enclosed Deck. Furthermore, the Egyptians can train two myth units that can act as transports. The Roc (the only airborne transport) and the Leviathan can garrison 15 and 20 units, respectively. These units are a more risky means of transport because if they are sunk or killed, all the cargo they carry will be killed as well.

Charon Ferry and the Pirate Ship are transports that are exclusively encountered in the Fall of the Trident campaign. The Raft (before Retold) and Monkey Raft are untrainable transports that can be found in the Scenario Editor.

Age of Empires III

Buildings

This image from IGN features, among others, several garrisonable units and buildings of Age of Empires III: a Dock, various Canoes, two Galleys, War Huts and a Nobles' Hut.

In Age of Empires III, the only units that can garrison (certain) structures are villagers, such as Settlers and Pilgrims and Fishing Boats. Buildings in which players may garrison units are:

• Agra Fort¹: Up to 50 villagers
• Blockhouse¹: Up to 20 villagers
• Castle¹: Up to 40 villagers
• Dock²: Up to 20 Fishing Boats
• Fort¹: Up to 50 units
• Nobles' Hut¹: Up to 15 villagers
• Outpost¹: Up to 10 villagers
• Town Center²: Up to 30 villagers
• Village²: Up to 20 villagers
• War Hut¹: Up to 20 villagers
• Kallanka³: Up to 10 military units; take up 1 less population when garrisoned within.
• Stronghold: Up to 50 military units, receive a boost to its attack in proportion to the units inside.
• Commandery⁴: Up to 40 units

1. These buildings receive a boost to their attack in proportion to the units inside. Once the Town Bell is rung, villagers will run there and garrison inside the closest available defensive structure or Town Center. Once the danger is over, the Bell may be rung again to release all villagers and send them back to work.
2. These three buildings are in a special category because they lack an attack by default, though this is partially averted by the Town Center, which can use an anti-ship attack. Either way, Docks, Town Centers, and Villages require villagers to be garrisoned if they are to fire against nearby enemy units. The Village also requires a Home City Card named Village Defenses in order to be able to fire, supplied from the Chinese Home City Cards.
3. Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition introduced the decreased unit population for military units garrisoned within a building ability.
4. Garrison space is shared between all Commanderies. Units garrisoned in a Commandery can exit from another Commandery, but this building cannot eject units without using its special ability.

Units

The units to which units can be garrisoned are limited entirely to ships. Ships that cannot garrison units are Dinghies*, Fire Junks, Fire Ships*, and Treasure Ships*.

Depending on the ship type, the amount of units that can be garrisoned varies:

• Fishing Boats: Up to 10 units.
• Flat-bottomed Boats*: Up to 15 units.
• Canoes and Marathan Catamarans: Up to 20 units.
• Tlaloc Canoes: Up to 40 units.
• War Canoes : Up to 50 units.
• Standard military ships can garrison up to 50 units. This also includes Morgan's Flagship* and Lizzie's Flagship*. They can garrison any land unit in the game, including artillery, herdable animals, and wagons.

* Campaign scenario-exclusive units.

Age of Empires IV

The garrison cursor

The ungarrison cursor

In Age of Empires IV, in terms of buildings, garrisoning is typically limited to defensive structures by default. In these buildings, any human unit can be garrisoned, and each garrisoned unit adds an arrow attack that has different attack, rate of fire, and range statistics depending on the specific building. Garrisoned units do not heal. The only generic exception is the Dock, which can garrison Fishing Boats. Unlike in other games in the series, units cannot garrison inside the production buildings from which they are created using gather points. Some civilizations have bonuses which allow other buildings to garrison units and grant certain bonuses.

Only three generic units, the Battering Ram, Siege Tower, and Transport Ship, can be garrisoned by default. Garrisoning does not offer any specific benefit to these units by default, but some civilizations have unique bonuses or units that allow garrisoned units to improve the statistics of the unit that they are garrisoned inside.

Generic buildings

The following generic buildings have the ability to garrison units:

• Capital Town Center: 15 human units
• Keep: 15 human units
• Town Center: 8 human units
• Outpost (including Toll Outpost): 5 human units
• Dock: 3 Fishing Boats.

Unique buildings

The following buildings that have the ability to garrison units are only unique to certain civilizations, or can only be garrisoned by certain civilizations through unique bonuses or technologies

Delhi Sultanate

The Delhi Sultanate can garrison Scholars inside various buildings. Scholars can be set to garrison in these buildings directly through gather points:

• Madrasa: 20 Scholars
• Mosque: 5 Scholars
• Dock: 4 Scholars
• Archery Range, Barracks, Stable, Siege Workshop: 1 Scholar after researching Efficient Production
• House: 5 foot units after researching Reinforced Foundations

Others

• Castle: 15 human units for the Japanese
• Village: 8 foot units for the Chinese and Zhu Xi's Legacy
• Wooden Fortress: 8 human units for the Rus
• Cattle Ranch: 3 Cattle for the Malians
• Monastery: 1 Prelate for the Holy Roman Empire after researching Cistercian Churches

Note that while the Atabeg ability is similar to garrisoning, it does not fall under this category since it is permanent, and once garrisoned inside the building, it cannot ungarrison.

Landmarks

A number of landmarks can also garrison units:

• Hisar Academy: 20 Scholars
• Berkshire Palace, The White Tower, Elzbach Palace, and Spasskaya Tower: 20 human units
• Castle of the Crow, Fort of the Huntress, Fortress, Red Palace, and Sea Gate Castle: 15 human units
• King's Palace, Palace of Swabia, and Saharan Trade Network: 10 human units
• Sultanhani Trade Network: 10 Traders
• Barbican of the Sun, Kremlin: 8 human units
• Dome of the Faith: 5 Scholars
• Palace of the Sultan: 4 Scholars
• Kura Storehouse: 4 human units
• Aachen Chapel and Regnitz Cathedral (after Cistercian Churches): 1 Prelate

Units

The following units have a garrison ability

• Tower of the Sultan: 20 foot units
• Transport Ship: 16 land units
• Battering Ram and Cheirosiphon: 16 foot units
• Siege Tower: 10 foot units
• Counterweight Trebuchet, Great Bombard, Mangonel, Ribauldequin, and Springald: 1 Janissary for the Ottomans after researching Siege Crews.

A few of these above units gain bonuses from garrisoned units. the Tower of the Sultan gains extra speed, the Byzantine Transport Ship gains extra armor, and Ottoman siege engines gain increased setup/teardown speed and attack speed.

Gameplay elements in the Age of Empires series
Age Ability (II · M · III · IV) Architecture set (II · III) Area of Effect (Trample damage) Armor (Melee I & II · Pierce I & II · M · IV) Armor class (I - original · I - Return of Rome · II) Artificial intelligence Attack (IV) Attack ground Aura (IV) Auto Scout Building (I · II · M · III · IV · C · AoE:DS) Civilization (I · II · M · III · IV · C) Civilization bonus Cheat code (I · II · M · III · IV) Conversion Counter Diplomacy Gaia/Mother Nature Game modes Garrison Gather Point Healing Hit points Hotkey Line of Sight Mini map Mobile building Pass-through damage Player Population Range Rate of Fire Regeneration Relic (II · M · IV) Repairing Resists Resource (Renewable resource) Scenario Editor (I · II · M · III · IV) Score Signal Allies/Flare Snare Soundtrack (I · II · M · III · IV) Speed Stealth mode Taunt Technology (I · II · M · III · IV · C · Unique) Technology tree (I · II · IV · C) Terrain (AoE:DS · AoM:DS) Town Bell Trade (IV) Tribute Unit (I · II · M · III · IV · C · AoE:DS · AoM:DS) Unit formation Unit stance (III) Unit type/tag (II · M · III · IV) Upgrade (I · II · III · IV) User interface Victory Villager Priority
Genie Engine-exclusive
Frame delay · Full Tech Tree · Team bonus
Age of Empires	Ruins · Discovery
Age of Empires II	Projectile duplication
Bang Engine-exclusive
Autoqueue · Multiplier
Age of Mythology	God (Major · Minor) · God power · Settlement (Settlement Victory) · Weight class
Age of Empires III	Age-up methods (Politician/Tribal Council/Wonder/Federal State/Alliance) · Banner army · Consulate · Damage Cap · Home City · Home City Card · Inspiring Flag · Minor civilization · Promotion · Revolution · Target Lock · Trade Monopoly · Trade Route · Treasure
Age of Empires IV-exclusive
Generic	Influence · Landmark · Point of Interest · Sacred Site · Variant civilization
Civilization-unique	Bounty · Dynasty · Golden Age · Imperial Council (Vizier Point) · Commanderie
If a gameplay element has different pages across games, like civilization, the individual pages are linked in brackets.