The British Home City, London
A Home City is the capital city of a civilization that delivers economic and military shipments to a player's in-game colony, adding extra functionality to normal gameplay. The Home City concept is a feature first introduced in Age of Empires III.
Overview
Home Cities enable more diverse game-style decision-making, where players can ship a variety of economic, land military and naval-oriented units or technology upgrades. Furthermore, players are also able to customize European Home Cities.
Each civilization has its own unique Home City, the real-life city locations of each are the following:
- British: London
- Dutch: Amsterdam
- French: Paris
- Germans: Berlin
- Ottomans: Istanbul
- Portuguese: Lisbon
- Russians: St. Petersburg (St. Basil's Cathedral, located in Moscow, appears in the background)
- Spanish: Seville (Torre del Oro, the Spanish Wonder from Age of Empires II: The Conquerors, can be seen in its background)
In The WarChiefs expansion, only the Aztecs have an actual city - the other civilizations are represented through Tribal Councils.
In The Asian Dynasties expansion, the civilizations have:
Cards and decks
- See Home City Card.
Every civilization has a unique assortment of improvements, units, and resources that are called Cards, which can be sent to the "New World" colony as shipments. The higher the player's Home City level is the more Cards are available for use. The cards are also available by Ages, such as troops start coming in during the Colonial Age while artillery start coming in at the Fortress Age.
There are five categories of cards, represented by a building in the Home City for European and Asian civilizations:
- Economic resources
- Military upgrades
- Building upgrades
- Economic upgrades
- Naval upgrades and mercenaries
All of the cards for a Home City are put in a group called a deck. A deck can contain 20 cards plus one extra for every ten levels, to a maximum of 25. This forces players to make decisions and to only use the cards they believe to be the most important.
Cost
Certain cards, such as those of mercenaries, cost a particular resource to account for the greater power of the card. This resource is usually Coin but can also be Wood or Food.
Experience
Experience is the fourth type of resource, gained passively, or through many other ways, with some civilizations being better than others.
Acquiring experience
- Passive trickle
Experience is gained by everyone passively over time at a rate of 2 per second, or 120 per minute.
- Civilization bonus, and penalty
The Spanish and Knights of St. John require 27% less experience than other civilizations to receive shipments from their Home City. The Germans require 10% more experience to receive shipments.
- Treasure hunting
Some Treasures provide experience, as well as the killing of Treasure Guardians. The Mountain Warrior card available to the Japanese can double the experience gained from the treasure, but not the guardians.
- Construction, and demolition
Constructing buildings grants 20% of the original cost. Destroying buildings grants twice the experience as constructing them.
- Unit training, and killing
The amount gained from training Settlers, Villagers, and Fishing Boats is 5% of the cost, Coureur des Bois, Cree Coureur des Bois, and Settler Wagons is 10%. Experience from training military units is also 10% of the cost. Training outlaws grants 20% of the cost instead.
The amount gained from killing all units, except outlaws, is 10% of the cost, outlaws grant 20%.
- Building trickles and bonuses
Some buildings can produce constant experience as well, specifically Shrines, Sacred Fields, Mosques, Toshogu Shrines, Consulate and Trading Posts built upon a Trade Route. Tasking huntable animals, or herdable animals on Shrines will increase production. Tasking herdables on Sacred Fields will also increase production.
The Torii Gates will increase the experience from constructing, training, or destroying buildings and units, as well as the passive experience trickle by +50%. This is incredibly powerful when combined with the Seven Lucky Gods card.
- Purchasing
Experience can also be purchased via a one time upgrade at the Church, Consulate, Mosque, and Zen Temple.
Cost and train/build reduction
Cost reduction cards for units or buildings do not reduce the experience gained from constructing, training, or destroying them. Therefore some combinations of cards and upgrades can effectively allow significant experience boosts from construction to be purchased at a very low cost (e.g. Land Grab, Advanced Plantation, and Cree Textile Craftsmanship (in that order) for 96% cheaper Plantations (32 Wood) and granting 160 experience every 12 seconds, equivalent to 13.3 experience a second).
Cards or upgrades that reduce construction, or train times of buildings, and units will also improve experience gain (e.g Stonemasons, Medicine, Fencing School, etc).
First eight shipments
- First - 300, 219 (Spain), 330 (Germans)
- Second - 345/645 (cumulative), 252/471, 380/710
- Third - 397/1042, 290/760, 436/1046
- Fourth - 456/1498, 333/1094, 502/1698
- Fifth - 525/2023, 383/1477, 577/2225
- Sixth - 604/2627, 443/1920, 662/2887
- Seventh - 693/3320, 513/2423, 757/3644
- Eighth - 792/4112, 593/3016, 862/4506
Gather Rates
This table shows the initial gathering rates, card and Consulate granted trickle rates are fixed and can not be increased, though they can be stacked with other trickle cards available to that civilization. Trade Routes will vary depending on length, and number of sites available, shown is the average one can expect on the majority of maps.
Herdable animals are for India only, though the individual pages also list the effect provided for Japanese Shrines.
Shrines, and Toshogu Shrine require the Seven Lucky Gods card to produce experience.
| Method | Initial rate |
|---|---|
| Passive trickle | 120/min |
| Sheep | 4.8/min per Sheep |
| Goat | 5.4/min per Goat |
| Cow/Water Buffalo/Yak | 6/min per animal |
| Llama | 7.2/min per Llama |
| TEAM Sumptuary Laws (card) | 12 coin, food, wood, and 6 export and experience per minute |
| Sumptuary Laws (card) | 18 coin, food, wood, and 9 export and experience per minute |
| Consulate (Spanish) | 48/min as long as they remain an ally |
| Trade Route (stagecoach/trade cart) | 40/min per Trading Post |
| Toshogu Shrine | 21 coin, wood, and food per minute, 55.8 experience, and increases regular shrine gather rates by 33% (but not experience) |
| Porcelain Tower | 10.8 (Colonial), 15 (Fortress), 24 (Industrial), or 60 (Imperial) experience per minute depending on the Age in which it is constructed. |
| Sacred Field (Sheep) | 8.4/min per Sheep (10 max, 84/min) |
| Sacred Field (Goat) | 9.6/min per Goat (10 max, 96/min) |
| Sacred Field (Llama) | 10.8/min per Llama (10 max, 108/min) |
| Sacred Field (Cow, Water Buffalo, Yak) | 12/min per animal (10 max, 120/min) |
| Shrine | 6 coin, wood, 8.4 food, and 20.4 experience per minute per Shrine (20 maximum, 408/min) |
- Note: The Spanish can train Llamas for the Indians at a Livestock Pen after sending the Llama Ranching card, thus gifting them experience indirectly.
Levels
All Home Cities begin at level 1 and are provided with 15 cards. As more XP is gained the Home City is able to level up and a new card can be added to the deck.
Choosing cards must be done carefully and a certain amount of strategy must be used.
Many cards must be unlocked through reaching a certain level Home City before becoming available. Some cards can also require other cards as prerequisites. Focusing on specific units or technologies minimizes the amount of cards that need to be purchased.
Customization
There are several ways the Home City can be customized so it looks unique from any other player's Home City. Customizations are varied; some provide entertainment to the streets of the Home City (Jugglers, Artists, Drunks...), or even market vendors and nobles. The design the buildings can be modified through the building color, adding "Market Day" flags, etc.
Available only to European civilizations from the vanilla game, customizations are unlocked as the Home City level increases.