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| “ | 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.
Contents
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 |
|---|---|---|
 
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Villager | Attacks enemy units, structures, and wild animals, or is simply idle. |
 
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Builder | Constructs buildings. |
 
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Farmer | Gathers food from a farm. |
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Fisherman | Gathers food from fish schools near the shore. |
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Forager | Gathers food from berry bushes. |
 
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Lumberjack | Gathers wood from trees. |
   
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Miner | Gathers gold or stone from mines. |
|
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Shepherd | Herds herdables near a Town Center or Mill, and gathers food from them. |
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Hunter | Kills and gathers food from non-herdable animals. |
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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.
Buildings[]
Villagers can construct the following buildings:
House (unavailable to the Huns)- Mill (unavailable to the Poles)
- Folwark (Poles only)
- Farm
- Mining Camp
- Lumber Camp
- Dock
- Town Center (only if the player does not own one yet)
- Barracks
- Outpost
- Palisade Wall
- Palisade Gate
Archery Range
Blacksmith
Market
Town Center (only if the player does not own one yet, Cumans can build a second one)
Stable (unavailable to the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas)
Siege Workshop (if playing Cumans)
Watch Tower (unavailable to the Sicilians)
Donjon (Sicilians only, also can be built by Serjeants)
Gate (unavailable to the Cumans and Goths)
Stone Wall (unavailable to the Cumans and Goths)
Castle Siege Workshop Guard Tower (unavailable to the Cumans, Goths, Huns, and Sicilians) Fortified Wall (unavailable to several civilizations)
Monastery
University Town Center
Harbor (Malay only)
Krepost (Bulgarians only)
Wonder Keep (unavailable to several civilizations)
Bombard Tower (unavailable to several civilizations)
Feitoria (Portuguese only)
A Villager building a Blacksmith.
Multiple Villagers can be used to construct a building faster. If t is the time required for one Villager to construct a building, and n is the number of Villagers used, the building time will be . This means the first Villager works three times as fast as any additional one and that it is more efficient to split Builders up when constructing multiple buildings, unless a key building has to be constructed quickly (e.g. a Castle or a Town Center).
. This means the first Villager works three times as fast as any additional one and that it is more efficient to split Builders up when constructing multiple buildings, unless a key building has to be constructed quickly (e.g. a Castle or a Town Center).
Repairing[]
Villagers can repair buildings, siege weapons, and ships. Doing so saves resources, although for buildings it may be a lot slower than constructing a new one. Villagers can repair from two tiles away - This is mainly meant to make repairing ships on the shore easier, but it also makes it possible to repair a unit or tower that has been fully walled, e.g. a tower.
Costs[]
Repairing a building or unit from 1 hit point to full health costs half of the originally required resources. The costs are deducted from the resource stockpile as the repair progresses, instead of being paid at the start and repairing partly will cost the appropriate amount (so repairing only half of the HP costs 25% of the original cost). Discounts also apply, e.g. a Franks player will only pay 244 stone to fully repair a Castle. If a player runs out of resources during a repair, the Villagers stop repairing and remain idle until they are retasked. Upgrades that increase the hit points of buildings do not affect repair costs.
The Town Center is an exception to the cost rule: It costs 550 wood and no stone to repair fully, but the stone stockpile cannot be empty or the Villagers will not be able to start repairing, even though no stone is consumed in the actual repair. Discounts for Town Centers do not apply to repairing.
Since The African Kingdoms, there is an exception to the exception: during the Dark Age, Town Centers cost the normal amount of wood and stone to repair.
Speed[]
For buildings, the first Villager will repair 750 hit points per minute, and any additional Villager will add 375 HP/minute to that (and thus will be only half as fast). This is the same regardless of the type of building, any upgrades or the original amount of hit points. Treadmill Crane does not affect the repair speed.
In most cases, constructing new building will be faster than repairing and may be preferable despite the higher cost (e.g. when replacing a damaged wall section).
Siege weapons and ships are repaired at 25% of the speed of buildings, so 187.5 HP/minute for the first and 93.75 HP/minute for any additional Villager.
Further statistics[]
| Unit strengths and weaknesses | |
|---|---|
| Strong vs. | Most buildings, Skirmishers (in small numbers), rams, Trebuchets |
| Weak vs. | Almost everything |
| Upgrades | |
| Carry capacity |  Wheelbarrow |