Repairing is an ability tied to buildings and appears in all Age of Empires titles. It is the mechanical equivalent to healing in that only buildings can be repaired (as only "organic" units can be healed) to have their hit points restored. In Age of Empires II, Age of Empires III, and Age of Empires IV, siege units and ships can be repaired as well. Unlike healing, repairing buildings, siege weapons, and ships will cost resources depending on the resources that it cost to build originally.
Age of Empires[]
Repair icons from the original and Definitive Edition of Age of Empires, with Villagers repairing a building and ship.
Villagers can repair buildings and ships. Land units, including siege engines, are instead healed by Priests.
In the original version of Age of Empires, the cost varies each time, but averaged close to 50%. Repairing in the Definitive Edition and Return of Rome costs 50% of the target's original build price. So for example, if a ship costs 100 wood, and 80% of its hit points are repaired, the repair will cost 40 wood.
Walls are an exception, costing just 0-1 stone to repair, and Return of Rome's gates are approximately a third of their original cost. In the original and Definitive versions of the game, Wonders are another exception, costing very few resources to repair and often being free.
The speed of repairs has changed in different versions of the game.
Original and Definitive Edition[]
Each Villager assigned to a repair job works at the same rate, so adding a second Villager will halve the repair time.
Repair time for buildings is 3⅓ times as long as their construction time. So for buildings that take 60 seconds to construct, such as the Town Center, it would take Villagers 200 seconds to repair 100% of the building's hit points; the repair rate is 0.5% of maximum hit points per second. Walls, which take 7 seconds to build, are repaired quickly, at 4.29% per second. Wonders take 8,000 seconds to build, so repair at a glacial rate of 0.00375% per second, or 26,666⅔ seconds to repair 100% of their hit points.
Ship repair rate is much faster, but still tied to their creation time, not their hit points. This means that if repairing the same percentage damage in a Scout Ship and Trireme, they will take the same length of time to repair, even though the Trireme has far more hit points.
The repair time for ships is half of their creation time. So for a Fishing Boat, which takes 40 seconds to build, Villagers would take 20 seconds to repair 100% of their hit points, a rate of 5% hit points per second.
Repair times are unaffected by Architecture (which increases building hit points). While Docks create units faster as the player advances through the ages, the repair rate remains the same since the work rate of Docks is increased, and not that the training time of ships is decreased.
Return of Rome[]
Return of Rome uses a different repair system that is closer to that of Age of Empires II. Villagers instead repair all buildings (including Wonders) at the fixed rate of 1.1 hit points per second, and ships at 3.19 hit points per second. This means that many buildings now take longer to repair, especially walls. For example, the Town Center has 600 hit points by default, so is repaired at a rate of 0.18⅓% per second in Return of Rome, compared to 0.5% per second in earlier versions of the game. However, Wonder repairs take a fraction of the time: 0.22% per second, rather than 0.00375%; towers are also repaired slightly quicker than before. Among ships, only the Fishing Boat and Catapult Trireme are faster to repair in Return of Rome; the Merchant Ship takes over twice as long.
Every Villager assigned to a repair job after the first will work at half the rate of the first Villager, i.e. 0.55 hit points per second for buildings, and 1.595 for ships. This rate does not diminish with each Villager; the tenth will still be adding 0.55 or 1.595 hit points per second to the repair.
Age of Empires II[]
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings introduced the repairing of siege weapons, instead of healing in Age of Empires. While players cannot construct allied buildings, they can repair them.
Cost[]
Repairing consumes half the resource cost of the building based on the percentage of the building's hit points restored. An exception to this is the Town Center, which does not consume stone when repaired, while consuming double the wood.
Unlike construction/training costs, repairing costs can be fractional. Since repairing cost is dependent on the original cost of the building or the unit, it is affected by the same bonuses. For example:
- Malian buildings cost -15% wood, so any player repairing Malian buildings has to pay -15% wood.
- Mayan-allied walls cost -50% to build. While the cost to construct is rounded (with .5 being rounded up), the cost to repair them for the entire team costs -50%.
- Shipwright also reduces the wood cost of repairing ships by 20%.
Rate[]
The rate of repairing is percentage based, with the percentage varying depending on the building. The percentage is such that the repair rate will be 375 hit points/second before factoring in technologies like Masonry or bonuses like the Byzantines. The first Villager is treated as if they were two Villagers for calculation purposes. These amounts are not affected by building rate increases like the one gained from the technology Treadmill Crane or the Spanish bonus. Due to the fixed rate, usually repairing a structure takes significantly longer than constructing the same structure, especially in the case of walls. Villagers repair ships and siege units at a fixed 187.5 hit points per minute (3.125 hit points per second) per Villager.
Anomaly[]
- Along with regular repairs by Villagers, Monk-type units can also repair Farms and Fish Traps, and do so much faster than Villagers but consuming the same amount of resources.
- The Serjeant can also repair (and construct) Donjons.
- Mule Carts can be repaired not only by Villagers as usual, but also when they are garrisoned in buildings. They are repaired at a rate of fixed proportion of their total hit points. The rate is 24% of total hit points per minute in Town Centers and towers, 48% in Castles, and 96% in Fortified Churches. They are repaired also when they are garrisoned in allied buildings. If the player owning the building has Herbal Medicine researched, the repair rates are tripled. This form of repairing is free, even though regular repairing by Villagers still costs resources.
Bonuses[]
- Georgians: Repairers in the vicinity of a Fortified Church work 10% faster.
- Romans: Repairers work 5% faster.
- Georgians (team bonus): Repairing (further) costs -25%.
Age of Mythology[]
| This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. |
Age of Mythology removed the ability to repair siege weapons and ships, which can instead be healed like other units. As well, repairing is much slower (at roughly 1/3 the rate) than building and much costlier than in previous titles.
Age of Empires III[]
Repairing in Age of Empires III has been overhauled. Villagers are no longer required to repair buildings and ships. Instead, buildings not under attack have the ability to automatically repair themselves at only the cost of wood, and ships not under attack are repaired by nearby Docks or Ports for free.
Age of Empires IV[]
In Age of Empires IV, as in Age of Empires II, buildings, ships, and siege engines can all be repaired by other units. Fishing Boats can repair friendly ships. Fishing Boats repair at 10 hit points/second, making them half as effective as a Villager. Janissaries can also repair siege engines.
According to player-run tests, repairing is independent of the cost of the thing being repaired. Repairing buildings repairs 20 hit points/second and costs 1 wood every 1.125 seconds for 22.5 hit points/unit wood. Repairing civilian ships and siege has the same rate. Repairing military ships costs 4 times more wood, but is otherwise the same. Repairing buildings is the only form of repairing with diminishing returns, as the repaired hit points per extra Villager reduces with more Villagers. Buildings which only cost stone are unique in needing stone to be repaired instead of wood.
Similar to building construction, repairing has diminishing returns, which means that every additional Villager used for repairs will add less repair per second than the previous ones. This means that players should start to repair critical infrastructure under siege as soon as possible, and that, as the amount of siege attacking increases, it eventually becomes impossible to out-repair it.
Repair costs are often much, much lower than the thing being repaired. For example, a Bombard costs less than 11 wood to repair its entire hit points pool, yet costs 850 resources. The biggest costs of repairing are lost gathering time from the Villagers not gathering, and being in a possibly vulnerable position which could lead to Villager losses.
Repairing being cheap has particular importance on water maps, even with the cost of repairing military ships being relatively higher to other things in this installment of the series. This is because it gives the defending player an advantage in being able to retreat ships more easily to be repaired by Villagers or Fishing Boats. In the early game, there is also the advantage of being able to spend resources on ships without needing to invest in more Docks. Additionally, ships are available much earlier than siege, making the importance of unit repairs make a difference for the early game as well.
Technologies[]
- Banco Repairs (Buildings are repaired 50% faster, Malians only)
- Extra Materials (Stone Wall Towers and Outposts automatically repair damaged Stone Walls within a 4-tile radius, Chinese only)
- Fire Stations (Military ships auto-repair 1 hit point every 2 seconds while out of combat, Holy Roman Empire and Order of the Dragon only)
Abilities[]
- Emergency Repairs (Active) - Any building, excluding Farms and walls, within the influence of a Holy Roman Empire or Order of the Dragon Town Center can activate the ability to repair itself by 150 hit points every second for 20 seconds. The ability has a 75 second cooldown shared between all buildings within the influence.
- Extra Materials (Passive) - Stone Wall Towers with the Extra Materials technology researched automatically repair damaged Stone Walls within a 4-tile radius for 20 hit points per second.
Influences[]
- Town Center Influence - Town Center grants all buildings under its influence the Emergency Repairs ability (Holy Roman Empire and Order of the Dragon only)
Trivia[]
- The Artificial intelligence in Age of Empires is infamous for continuously attempting to repair damaged buildings, even when surrounded by enemy units.
- In Age of Mythology, it is not possible to restore the repairing of siege weapons via modding as the function code for repair is hardcoded to be exclusive to buildings.