Shipwright

This article is about the technology in Age of Empires II. For the technology in Age of Empires IV, see Shipwrights.

Shipwright
Availability
Introduced in	Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
Civilization	See table
Age	Imperial Age
Research
Researched at	Dock Harbor
Food	1,000
Gold	300
Research time	60 seconds
Effect
Ships cost -20% wood and are trained 54% faster.

Shipwright is a technology in Age of Empires II available at the Dock upon reaching the Imperial Age. Once researched, it decreases the amount of wood required to build any Dock unit by 20%. With patch 1.0b, it also reduces the training time of ships by 35%, which results in an increase in the creation speed of ships by 54%. Unlike the similar technology Conscription, Shipwright does not make Docks work faster, hence technologies are not researched faster.

The Vikings have a civilization bonus making their warships 20% cheaper in the Imperial Age, partly compensating the fact that they cannot research Shipwright.

Availability chart

Available	Unavailable
Aztecs Bengalis Berbers Britons Byzantines Celts Chinese Dravidians Ethiopians Goths Gurjaras Incas Italians Japanese Koreans Magyars Malay Mayans Mongols Romans Sicilians Spanish Turks	Armenians✝ Bohemians Bulgarians Burgundians Burmese Cumans Franks Georgians Hindustanis Huns Khmer✝ Lithuanians Malians Persians Poles Portuguese Saracens Slavs Tatars Teutons Vietnamese Vikings

^✝ means that the civilization had access to Shipwright in the past, but does not currently.

Civilization bonuses

• Chinese: Researching Shipwright is 15% cheaper.
• Italians: Researching Shipwright is 33% cheaper.
• Spanish: Receive 20 gold after researching Shipwright.

Team bonuses

• Portuguese: Researching Shipwright is 25% faster.

Changelog

The Age of Kings

• Shipwright only reduces the train cost of Dock units.

The Conquerors

• With patch 1.0b, all ships receive a +54% creation speed boost upon researching Shipwright.

The Forgotten

• Italians: Shipwright is 50% cheaper.

Rise of the Rajas

• Khmer: Can research Shipwright.

Definitive Edition

• Khmer: Shipwright removed from their technology tree.

Lords of the West

• Italians: With update 44725, Shipwright is 33% cheaper.

Victors and Vanquished

• With update 111772,
  • Armenians: Can no longer research Shipwright.
  • Berbers: Can research Shipwright.

Trivia

• None of the four civilizations introduced in The Last Khans and neither of the two civilizations introduced in Dawn of the Dukes have access to Shipwright. Since update 111772, neither of the two civilizations introduced in The Mountain Royals have access to Shipwright.
• During the beta, the Tatars had access to Shipwright.
• Sometimes it is not cost-effective to research Shipwright, when the player plans to create only few ships. If in-game food costs the same as wood, there should be 4,000 wood spent to get 1,000 food for free because of the discount. This means that Shipwright will pay for itself after creating 25 Cannon Galleons or 72 Demolition Ships. The wood savings are important on maps like Islands where the tendency of wood to deplete is high. Also, the technology does not affect gold cost.

History

“

Men who built and designed ships were called shipwrights. Their value to sea coast communities increased as the demand for sea trade and war ships increased. Expert shipwrights built sturdier ships at a lower cost.

”