Villager

A Settler in Age of Empires III

The Villager is a type of economic unit Civilian fundamental to the Age of Empires series. They form the very backbone of a player's civilization, and as such, are the most important units in the game as the primary collectors of resources. Villager units are able to construct and repair buildings, in addition to ships and siege units in some games of the series. Their combat ability, especially against military units, is very limited.

One of the most effective ways to disrupt an enemy's strategic objectives is to kill their villager units, especially using fast units such as cavalry in hit-and-run tactics. This often costs the opponent significant resources in addition to wasted gathering and production time.

Appearances

They appear in all games of the series:

• Age of Empires: Villager (Age of Empires)
• Age of Empires II: Villager (Age of Empires II)
• As the unique Greek unit in Age of Mythology: Villager (Age of Mythology)
• As Native American, African, and Asian units in Age of Empires III: Villager (Age of Empires III)
• Age of Empires IV: Villager (Age of Empires IV)

In Age of Mythology and Age of Empires III, villagers appear in various types. The details of all such types for Age of Empires III can be found at Villager (tag).

Age of Mythology

All worker units

Villager is the generic name for villager-type units in Age of Mythology. In the data files, all Villager-type units have the AbstractVillager tag. All Villager units are trained at the Town Center.

The Greeks train Villagers.

The Egyptians train Laborers.

The Norse train Gatherers and Dwarves.

The Atlanteans train Citizens.

The Chinese train Peasants.

All Villagers are able to gather resources and build some buildings, but they are still all different:

• Greek Villagers gather resources and build buildings at an average speed. They can also be tasked to pray at Temples to generate favor.
• Egyptian Laborers gather and build buildings at a lower speed. This can be offset by making the Pharaoh empower the building they are working on. This makes their gather rates above average, though some buildings are still built more slowly.
• Norse Gatherers and Dwarves cannot build buildings except Farms.
  • Gatherers have average gathering and building rates.
  • Dwarves cost gold instead of food. They gather gold 20% faster than Gatherers but are slower when gathering food and wood. Thor's Dwarves gather food and wood more quickly.
• Atlantean Citizens are more than twice as fast as Villagers and Gatherers at gathering and building. As they have pack mules, they do not need to walk to resource drop-off points. Like other human Atlantean units, Citizens can be turned into heroes, which improves their gathering and building rates. On the other hand, Citizens cost three times as many resources and population slots and walk more slowly. They are also less proficient in combat relative to their resource and population cost than the other Worker types.
• Chinese Peasants are essentially the same as Greek Villagers in all but one domain: upgrades. Whereas Villagers are affected by certain myth technologies that can be researched in the Heroic Age, Peasants are affected by myth technologies from the Archaic Age, with all three Chinese major gods providing a special upgrade that affects exclusively Peasants.

Trivia

• Originally Villagers had the ability to fish, this feature was however cut.
• Laborers and Gatherers were originally simply called "Villagers", before being changed to their current names so their cultures could be unique.

Gallery

All villager units

Greek Villagers

Egyptian Laborers

Norse Gatherers

Norse Dwarves

Atlantean Citizen, with pack mule

Atlantean Citizen Hero, with pack mule

Chinese Peasants

Further reading

• Official article by Sage of Empires on Medieval Peasants in Europe