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This article is about the Relic in Age of Empires IV. For other uses, see Relic. |
| “ | Starting in the Castle Age (III), use a religious unit to pick up Relics. Place Relics in Monasteries, Mosques, or Prayer Tents to generate Gold over time. Religious units also gain the Conversion ability while holding a Relic. |
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| —Age of Empires IV description for the Relic | ||
Relics are special objects in Age of Empires IV, which are classified as Religious Artifacts in-game. They are depicted in-game as medium-sized, yellow-white, trophy-looking constructs. At the beginning of a random map game, Relics are scattered around the map and can be gathered by players to provide resources and other advantages.
Resource generation[]
| “ | A religious unit can pick up this Relic and place it in a religious building to generate Gold. | ” |
| —Age of Empires IV description for the Relic | ||
The primary purpose of Relics is to generate a steady trickle of resources for their controlling player. Along with trade and various civilization bonuses, they offer one of the primary methods of generating gold in the late game after mines on the map have been exhausted. To do this, they must be picked up by a religious unit such as a Monk, and stored in a religious building. This can be the standard building like the Monastery or equivalent, or it can be one of the various landmarks that also acts as a Monastery, such as the Abbey of the Trinity or Regnitz Cathedral. These buildings can store a maximum of 3 Relics. Note that being classified in-game as a religious building does not guarantee a building's ability to store Relics, as with the Aachen Chapel or Abbey of Kings. While a Relic is in a religious building, the Relic generates 13.33 gold every ten seconds, or 80 gold/min, slightly less than 2 unupgraded Villagers.
The resource generation of Relics can be upgraded by researching Tithe Barns, which makes Relics generate an additional 40 food, 40 wood, 10 stone per minute in addition to gold.
Civilization bonuses[]
Byzantines and Macedonian Dynasty: Relics in the Grand Winery generate an equivalent amount of Olive Oil/Silver instead of gold.- Chinese and Zhu Xi's Legacy: Can place 1 Relic in a Pagoda (which are unlocked by entering the Yuan Dynasty and have a build limit of 3). Relics in Pagodas generate 62 food, 62 wood, 100 gold, 25 stone per minute and are not affected by Tithe Barns.
- Holy Roman Empire and Order of the Dragon: Constructing the Regnitz Cathedral doubles the gold generation of all Relics.
- Knights Templar: After researching Treasure Towers, Relics generate 20% increased gold if the Monastery is within the radius of a Fortress.
- Mongols: Mongols have access to Improved Tithe Barns, which further increases Relic resource generation by 20 food, 20 wood, 5 stone, for a total of 60 food, 60 wood, 80 gold, 15 stone per minute.
Relic distributions and strategies[]
The default number of Relics is three plus the number of players, which in standard 1 vs 1 and team games results in an odd number of Relics that can be fought over. Many 'fast castle' strategies, which involve trying to reach the Castle Age as fast as possible to gain a technology advantage, also involve collecting as many Relics as quickly as possible to catch up on economy that would have otherwise grown through adding additional Town Centers. Thus when opposing players both attempt a fast castle strategy, the player or team that gathers the extra Relic can gain an important advantage, so using mobility and map control to deny Relics is an important aspect of the game. Usually, at least a few of the Relics will favor one player or team in their positions, sometimes very deliberately like on Migration or Mountain Clearing, but most maps will have some or all of the Relics in more contested locations. Maps that are divided into two by some feature, be it a river or a mountain, will have one extra Relic to ensure one team does not get the inherent Relic position advantage. This includes Mongolian Heights, Mountain Pass, and Nagari. Other maps may have more or less Relics than usual, or a fixed amount of Relics, because they are divided into segments or islands and scripted to have a specific number of Relics per section. This includes African Waters, Confluence, Continental, Socotra, and Waterlanes. The map which currently has the most amount of Relics is Warring Islands, where each player can start out with up to two Relics on their team's island, and an additional three or four on the neutral islands.
Relics can also be unearthed from the Forgotten Ruins Point of Interest after assigning a Villager to work there. On the map 'Hedgemaze', this is the only way they are available.
Civilization bonuses[]
- Knights Templar: All Relics on the map are visible at the start of the game.
Other uses[]
Conversion[]
While carrying a Relic, religious units can use Conversion to attempt to convert all units within a 4.75 tile radius to their side. Any enemy units remaining within the radius at the end of a 6-second countdown are converted. Siege engines, hero units, and other religious units are not affected.
Ayyubids[]
- Dervish: Mass Heal (Active): Heals all units within a 3 tile radius slowly. Heals +50% faster while carrying a Relic. Has a 3 minute cooldown.
Holy Roman Empire and Order of the Dragon[]
The Holy Roman Empire and Order of the Dragon can use Relics as means to strength their defenses and military ships. They can store Relics in other buildings (max 1 Relic in each non-religious building). Relics stored in other buildings still generate resources as if they were in a Monastery.
- Dock - Each garrisoned Relic adds 5% attack speed to all military ships (up to +25% max).
- Relics can be garrisoned inside defensive buildings ( Outposts, Stone Wall Towers, Keeps, Elzbach Palace) and in addition to generating resources, they provide the following bonuses to the building:
- Armor +25%
- Damage +25%
- Sight range +20%
- Weapon range +20%
Japanese[]
- Buddhist Monk: While carrying a Relic, the Buddhist Monk can perform a Buddhist Conversion, replacing the standard ability. This grants allied units within the conversion radius extra damage. This ability can be upgraded to Nehan Conversion by researching Nehan, which additionally grants allies within the conversion radius extra movement speed.
Golden Horde[]
Gallery[]
