| “ | Traders generate Gold when assigned to trade with a Trade Post or another player's Market. Once assigned to trade, the Trader makes repeated trips between its Home Market and the Trade Target. You can assign a new Home Market if you wish to. | ” |
| —Age of Empires IV description | ||
The Trader is a civilian unit in Age of Empires IV trained at the Market. The Mongols can also train Traders at The Silver Tree, their Dark Age Landmark, French with the Chamber of Commerce Landmark, and Ottomans with the Sultanhani Trade Network. It is used to generate resources through trade with other players' Markets or Docks, or with neutral Trade Posts.
Tactics[]
Early game[]
Going for a Market and Traders in the early game is an alternative for increasing the player's economy without needing to build additional Town Centers. Its advantages over a Town Center are smaller upfront cost and lower build time. In turn, Traders are more expensive than Villagers, take longer to train, and have a much longer payback time. Furthermore, they are much more difficult to defend, since the trade route will force the Trader to traverse significant parts of the map. Therefore, whether or not to create Traders and when depends highly on the map chosen, the player's civilization, and the opponent's civilization. For a generic civilization, on a micro size map, a Trader will take approximately 4 minutes and 20 seconds to pay back with a trade route 1/2 the map edge length, 3 minutes and 45 seconds for 3/4 the length, and 3 minutes for the full map edge. By comparison, a generic un-upgraded villager will take only slightly over a minute to pay off, making creating Traders a significantly-riskier strategy and very costly if they are lost early. However, this doesn't take into account the cost of additional Town Centers, and if left undisturbed, Trade from multiple markets can nearly always outboom a multiple Town Center strategy. As such, the following general guidelines can be used when deciding whether or not to trade in the early game.
- The Abbasid Dynasty and Mongols have the strongest early-game trade bonuses that allow Traders to pay back their cost significantly faster. The Malians can also use Toll Outposts to collect resources from Traders even before they reach their trading target, making trade income more regular although at a higher investment cost.
- It is harder to defend a trade route versus aggressive, cavalry-oriented civilizations such as the Rus and French than against slower infantry-focused civilizations such as the English and Holy Roman Empire or civilizations that often boom with multiple town centers, such as the Abbasid Dynasty or Chinese.
- Maps where Trade Posts always spawn on the corners with the map edge (trade route) behind the player, such as Altai, Prairie, or The Pit make trade pay off quicker and easier to defend. On team games, because allied markets can always be built on the corners, the map does not matter as much (although because of the extra 20% return, players should still trade with neutral Trade Posts if they're located on the corners).
- Disrupting and slowing down the opponent with Dark Age aggression can allow a trade route to be more easily set up undisturbed.
Late game[]
Because trade provides an infinite supply of gold, it is nearly always worth it to begin creating Traders once gold on the map starts to run out, replacing Villagers as they go idle. At this stage of the game, the cost of a Trader will have a smaller impact on the overall economy, making it less risky to create them. Furthermore, unlike in the early-game, where there are several other strategic alternatives, the late-game alternative is simply running out of gold, which will leave a player unable to create strong units and at a significant disadvantage to a player with gold. This is further encouraged for civilizations with strong late-game trade bonuses, such as the Abbasid Dynasty and Ottomans. Only a few civilizations with strong sources of alternative passive gold income can get away with having smaller or non-existent trade routes - such as the English with Enclosures, or Chinese and Zhu Xi's Legacy with tax income.
Further statistics[]
| Technologies | |
|---|---|
| Hit points |  Biology (+20%, except  French and  Jeanne d'Arc) Biology Improved (+30%,  Mongols)  Public Libraries (+2 for each economic technology researched,  Abbasid Dynasty)
|
| Armor |  Fitted Leatherwork (+1 melee) Insulated Helm (+1 melee) Master Smiths (+1 melee) Iron Undermesh (+1 ranged) Wedge Rivets (+1 ranged) Angled Surfaces (+1 ranged) Armored Caravans (+3 melee/ranged, Abbasid Dynasty)
|
| Regeneration |  Gion Festival (Heal to full health every 3 minutes,  Japanese)
|
| Trade Return: Gold |  Spice Roads (+30%, Abbasid Dynasty) Trade Bags (+40%,  Ottomans)
|
| Trade Return: Secondary Resource |  Grand Bazaar (+25% food or wood, Abbasid Dynasty) Stone Commerce (+10% stone, Mongols) Stone Commerce Improved: (+20% stone, Mongols)
|
| Resource Generation |  Merchant Guilds (Generates 1 gold every 6 seconds, French and Jeanne d'Arc)
|
| Other |  Trade Wing - Bazaar (Can hire traders at a discounted cost depending on Age researched,  Ayyubids)
|
| Aura enhancements | |
|---|---|
| Movement speed |  Naval Deployment (+50% speed for 12 seconds after unloading from a Transport Ship,  Byzantines) Nehan Conversion (+25% for 20 seconds, Japanese) Yam Aura (+15%, Mongols) Maneuver Arrow (+33% for 5/10/12 seconds, depending on Whistling Arrows, Mongols) Trade Protection (+30%, Ottomans)
|
| Armor |  Defense Arrow (+2 melee and ranged for 5/10/12 seconds, depending on Whistling Arrows, Mongols) Trade Protection (+8 melee/ranged, Ottomans) Saint's Blessing (+1 melee/ranged  Rus)
|
| Line-of-Sight |  Set up Camp (+30%,  English)
|
| Creation Speed |  Golden Age Tier 3 (+20%, Abbasid Dynasty and Ayyubids)
|
| Civilization Bonuses | |
|---|---|
| Trade Return: Gold | Mongols (+10% with 15+ active traders)
|
| Trade Return: Secondary Resource | Byzantines (+20% Olive Oil) French and Jeanne d'Arc (Can return food or wood instead of gold) Mongols (+10% food/wood with 5+/10+ active traders)
|
| Resource Generation | Ottomans (+6 gold per trader every 15 seconds when garrisoned in Sultanhani Trade Network, additional +40% with Trade Bags)
|
| Cost | Abbasid Dynasty and Ayyubids (-33%) Mongols (-40% gold from The Silver Tree) Zhu Xi's Legacy (-10% in  Yuan Dynasty)
|
| Creation Speed | Mongols (+40% from The Silver Tree)
|
Note: Despite no longer having the Cavalry tag, Traders still benefit from Biology. However, they don't benefit from the French and Jeanne d'Arc equivalent: Royal Bloodlines
Unique Landmark boosts[]
With the Khaganate Palace, the Mongols can obtain unique technologies and units from other civilizations. As such, Mongol Traders can potentially benefit from the following boosts normally not available to them:
| Aura enhancements | |
|---|---|
| Armor | Saint's Blessing (+1 melee/ranged, Mongols)
|
Dialogue lines[]
Traders use the same dialogue lines as Villagers.
- Main article: Villager (Age of Empires IV)#Dialogue lines
Changelog[]
- With the Season Three Update, cost decreased from 75 wood, 75 gold to 60 wood, 60 gold. Abbasid Dynasty traders can no longer return stone as an additional resource after researching Grand Bazaar. French traders can no longer trade for stone.
- With the Season Three Update, train time was decreased from 35 seconds to 25 seconds. This was increased back up to 30 seconds in patch 9.1.370.
- With the Season Four Update, trader income reduced by 10%.
- With the Season Four Update, the cost to double-produce Mongol traders was increased from +90 stone to +120 stone
- With patch 6.1.130, Trader income reduced by 10%. Mongol silk road bonus trade income level requirements increased from 3/5/7/9 active traders to 5/10/15/20 active traders per level.
- With the Season Five Update, traders now generate half the trade route income when they touch both the home market and the target market, as opposed to all of the income when completing a round trip.
- With the Season Five Update, the production speed bonus and gold discount for Traders created at The Silver Tree were decreased from 50% to 40%
- With patch 9.2.628, Traders are no longer tagged as Cavalry. However, they still benefit from Biology
Campaign version[]
Because the original four campaigns have not been rebalanced since the release of the game, Traders in these campaigns have the following main differences:
- They cost 100 wood, 100 gold and take 50 seconds to produce.
- Their move speed is 1.15 tiles/second instead of 1.00
In The Sultans Ascend, both male and female Camel Traders replace the primary Trader model for the player civilization, and the icon is replaced with the Atabeg icon
Trivia[]
- The Abbasid Dynasty, Chinese, and Delhi Sultanate are the only civilizations without female Traders.
- Malian traders were originally designed to ride camels, which is historically accurate, since they connected West Africa to trans-Saharan trade routes, where the camel is the superior means of transportation. It is unknown why this design was replaced with horses instead. This camel design with Malian Villagers was then incorrectly repurposed for the Atabeg instead.
Gallery[]
