An example of Home City Cards: a Sioux Deck
Deck selection screen in the Definitive Edition.
A Home City Card (colloquially called HCC) provides a bonus effect when shipped from the Home City Card Deck (colloquially called HCCD) available at the Home City in Age of Empires III.
Overview[]
Each Home City Card sends units to the colony or resource crates or provides upgrades to a player's units, economy or buildings. These shipments are accrued from experience as the game progresses. There are five categories of Home City Cards, with up to twenty cards allowed in a deck in Age of Empires III, and up to 25 (an additional one per ten Home City levels*) allowed in a deck in the expansions. The Mexicans and United States are only allowed up to 21 cards in their deck, but they receive more cards through Federal States and Revolutions (Mexicans only).
Each Age can hold ten cards in skirmishes and in supremacy as of the latest patch while the single player campaign only allows nine cards per row.
Cost reduction stacking[]
Cards or minor native upgrades that reduce unit, building, or upgrade costs stack differently depending on whether they are based on the current cost or the base cost. For example, "Land Grab" reduces the current cost of an Estate by 40%, whereas "Advanced Estate" reduces the base cost of an Estate by 31%. For this reason, the order in which these cards are sent matters. Sending Land Grab first, then Advanced Estate, reduces the cost from 600 wood to 174 wood (600×0.6-600×0.31); Reversing the order only reduces the cost to 248 wood (600×0.69×0.6).
Besides checking game files or testing, there is no clear way to find out whether a specific card or upgrade reduces cost based on current or base cost.
Drop points[]
When units or crates are sent, they arrive at the shipment drop point, which is by default the players starting Town Center; however, the player can change the drop point by selecting the Set Drop Point button present on a variety of buildings, including Town Centers, Forts and Outposts. In the Definitive Edition, the player has the option to set separate drop points for economic shipments and military shipments, so e.g. units can all muster at a Fort placed near the enemy whilst resource crates are shipped to the Town Center.
Units can also act as a drop point; for example the Shogun and Daimyo, powerful cavalry units available to the Japanese.
On water maps, there is an additional drop point for sea units, which can be freely moved around the water on the map to an area revealed by the player.
Types of shipments[]
Home City Cards can be categorized by their effect, cost and the number of times the card can be sent. Some of these categories also impact the visual appearance of a card as indicated below. Cards can also have a dual-colored border, which indicates the card belongs to more than one category. All in-game visual changes to a card's icon are summarized below.
Most Home City Cards take 40 seconds to arrive. Mercenary shipments take 60 seconds. A few cards arrive very fast (5 seconds).
| Visual effect | Shipment type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| White border Number in bottom left corner |
Unit (ships a number of land or naval units) |  12 Janissaries
|
| Yellow border | Technology (provides unique technologies that can be researched at a building) |  Royal Decree to Claim the New World
|
| Upgrade (upgrades specific units or buildings) |  Archeic Infantry Hitpoints
| |
| Yellow border Number in bottom left corner |
Resource (provides an amount of resources) |  Crates of 600 Food
|
| Green border | TEAM (provides an effect to all allies in a team) |  TEAM House of Aviz
|
| Blue border | Ability (adds abilities to specific units) |  Tsetse Sabotage
|
| Brown border | Wagon (ships a Wagon which transforms into a building) |  Fort
|
| Yellow-Green border | Animal (sends a number of Animals) |  15 Sheep + 1 Homestead Wagon
|
| Red border "2x" in top-left corner |
Can be sent twice |  5 Yumi Archers
|
| Purple border Infinity symbol in top-left corner |
Can be sent infinitely |  2 Villagers
|
| Resource icon in bottom-right corner | Costs resources to be sent (sometimes multiple resources) |  Temple of Centeotl Support
|
Wiki colors[]
The wiki uses tables to display Home City Cards, which have been styled in an intuitive sense to reduce the amount of required text and improve readability. Below is an overview of the styling used.
| TEAM Shipment that is sent to each player in a team |
| Shipment that can be sent an INFINITE number of times |
| Shipment that can be sent twice |
| Shipment that arrives fast (5 seconds) |
| Home City Cards in Age of Empires III | |
|---|---|
| Civilizations | |
| African |  Ethiopians ·  Hausa |
| Asian |  Chinese ·  Indians ·  Japanese |
| European |  British ·  Dutch ·  French ·  Germans ·  Italians ·  Maltese ·  Ottomans ·  Portuguese ·  Russians ·  Spanish ·  Swedes |
| Federal American |  Mexicans ·  United States |
| Native American |  Aztecs ·  HaudenosauneeI ·  Inca ·  LakotaS |
| Campaign and Historical Battle civilizations | |
 Barbary Pirates (Algiers) ·  Black Family Estate (Act I: Fire and Act II: Shadow) ·  Canadians (Battle of Queenston Heights) ·  John Black's Mercenaries (Act II: Ice) ·  Knights of St. John (Act I: Blood) ·  Moroccans (The Battle of the Three Kings) · United States (campaign) (Act III: Steel) | |
| I formerly "Iroquois"; S formerly "Sioux" | |
