Villager (Age of Empires II)

This article is about the Villager in Age of Empires II. For the Villager in other games of the series, see Villager.

Villager

MaleDE
FemaleDE
MaleHD
FemaleHD

Unit information

Introduced in

The Age of Kings

Type

Civilian

Civilization

All civilizations

Abilities

Gather resources
Construct buildings
Repair buildings, ships, siege weapons

Training

Trained at

Town Center

Training time

25 seconds

Statistics

Attack

3 melee

Attack bonuses

+6 vs Stone defense
+3 vs Building

Range

0

Speed

0.8

Line of Sight

4

“	Gathers wood, food, stone, gold. Builds and repairs buildings. Also repairs ships, siege weapons.	”
—Age of Empires II description

The Villager is an economic unit in Age of Empires II that can be trained at the Town Center. Villagers are the backbone of every civilizations' economy, performing key tasks such as resource gathering and building construction. The only economic unit to be either male or female, a newly created Villager is randomly assigned gender at the Town Center.

All civilizations, except for the Chinese and Mayans (who start with six and four Villagers, respectively), begin a standard game with three Villagers. While they perform ineffectively in combat conditions and cease their tasks when attacked, a few can be useful when positioned in the rear of an army, enabling them to repair damaged siege weapons or construct military buildings to reinforce an army. Spanish Villagers with Supremacy receive a strong boost to their combat stats, making them viable for combat in the early Imperial Age.

Tasks[]

Villagers may be assigned with different tasks. Accordingly, their titles and icons will change to the corresponding task they are currently completing.

Icons	Title	Task
	Villager	Attacks enemy units, structures, and wild animals, or is simply idle.
	Builder	Constructs buildings.
	Farmer	Gathers food from a farm.
	Fisherman	Gathers food from fish schools near the shore.
	Forager	Gathers food from berry bushes.
	Lumberjack	Gathers wood from trees.
	Miner	Gathers gold or stone from mines.
	Shepherd	Herds herdables near a Town Center or Mill, and gathers food from them.
	Hunter	Kills and gathers food from non-herdable animals.
	Repairer	Repairs buildings, ships, and siege weapons.

Villagers are immediately assigned a new role as soon as they are given a new task, without having to interact with the resource, unit or building that they are tasked to. For example, a Hunter will immediately be turned into a Fisherman if tasked to collect fish, even without interacting with the fish. This is relevant because it enables hunters to drop-off food at a Dock, which is otherwise impossible for hunters to do. Also, the fisherman will retain any food they held while being a Hunter, despite the fact that hunters are able to carry much more food than Fishermen (i.e if the hunter was carrying 35 food, the Fisherman will be able to drop-off 35 food at the Docks).

If a Villager is carrying any resources upon switching a role, the Villager will continue carrying that resource until they begin to collect a resource from a different resource type. For example, if a miner carrying 10 gold is tasked to collect from a Farm, he will be turned into a farmer, but will still carry 10 gold (which has to be dropped-off at a Mining Camp), and will only drop this gold the moment they begin collecting from a Farm.

Gathering rates[]

Villagers gather resources from different sources at a different speed. The table below shows all gathering rates in descending order.

Villager type	Resource	Gathering rate (resources/second)
Farmer	Food	0.53*
Fisherman	Food	0.43
Hunter	Food	0.41
Lumberjack	Wood	0.39
Gold Miner	Gold	0.38
Stone Miner	Stone	0.36
Shepherd	Food	0.33
Forager	Food	0.31

Villagers gathering food from a Wild Boar in *Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition*.

* Note that the listed Farm gather rate is only while harvesting; Farmers also spend a substantial amount of time walking about the Farm, during which no food is collected, lowering the net collection rate substantially. This also does not account for travel time to and from the nearest Mill or Town Center, further lowering the collection rate. Together, these two factors lower the default Farm collection rate, even when optimally placed, to around 0.32/second.

Despite the listed gather rate, Farms seem to have a hidden maximum production rate of 0.44 food per second. While Villagers can collect at the listed 0.53 for brief periods of time, over the long term, they will average a collection rate of 0.44, even if modified in the Scenario Editor to move instantly. This has the side effect of making the Hand Cart upgrade less effective than it should be, improving gather rates by only a few percent.