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
Unit information
Introduced in	Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
Type	Civilian
Civilization	All civilizations
Age	Dark Age
Training
Trained at	Town Center
Food	50
Training time	25 seconds
Statistics
Hit points	25
Melee attack	3
Attack bonus	+6 vs Stone defense +6 vs Heavy siege +3 vs Building
Reload time	2
Range	0
Melee armor	0
Pierce armor	0
Speed	0.8
Line of Sight	4
Ability	Gather resources Construct buildings Repair buildings, ships, siege weapons
Collision size	0.2

“	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. For this reason, it is commonly recommended to create Villagers until the Villager count reaches 50% of the population limit (100 under standard rules), though going as high as 65% (130 under standard rules) is commonly seen during boom strategies. The only economic unit to be either male or female, a newly created Villager is randomly assigned gender at the Town Center.

Saving Villagers is important, as they are the backbone of economy. When being attacked by melee units, players can quickly build foundations around Villagers to avoid getting hit. Retreating or garrisoning in a nearby building is recommended when Villagers are being attacked by ranged units. Town Centers also have a Town Bell function that causes all Villagers within 23 tiles to garrison in the nearest shelter. Pressing the Town Bell again returns the Villagers from that building back to work. Pressing the All Back to Work command sends garrisoned Villagers from that building as well as nearby buildings back to work.

Villagers have two unique commands, Drop Off and Seek Shelter. Drop Off tasks the Villager to drop off its carried resources at the nearest valid drop-off location and then immediately return to work. This streamlines the early game, especially if the build order requires force-dropping resources. Seek Shelter behaves like the Town Bell, but only for the selected Villagers.

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 mechanical siege weapons and ships, 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	Created by default; attacks enemy units, structures, and wild animals.
	Builder	Constructs buildings.
	Farmer	Gathers food from a Farm.
	Fisherman	Gathers food from fish schools near the shore.
	Forager	Gathers food from Berry and Forage Bushes.
	Lumberjack	Gathers wood from trees.
	Gold Miner	Gathers gold from Gold Mines.
	Stone Miner	Gathers stone from Stone Mines.
	Shepherd	Herds herdable animals near a Town Center or Mill, and gathers food from them.
	Hunter	Kills and gathers food from non-herdable animals, like Deer and Wild Boars.
	Repairer	Repairs buildings, ships, and siege weapons.

The base carry capacity of a Villager is 35 for food specifically from hunting and 10 for all other resources.

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 carrying any resources finishes building a drop-off site or Farm, the resources they are carrying get collected. 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.

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

Villager type	Resource	Gathering rate
		Resources/second	Resources/minute
Villager	Food^	1	60
Fisherman	Food	0.43	25.8
Hunter		0.41	24.6
Shepherd		0.33	19.8
Farmer		0.32*	19.2
Forager		0.31	18.6
Lumberjack	Wood	0.39	23.4
Gold Miner	Gold	0.38	22.8
Stone Miner	Stone	0.36	21.6

* This is the default farming rate over longer periods of time. Their technical collection rate is actually 0.53, but unlike other means of collecting resources, farming has several obfuscating details which make the short-term farming rate less useful than the longer-term rate. The first factor is that farmers must move around the farm several times while harvesting. This reduces their collection rate, since they do not collect resources when walking about the farm. The second factor is that farms themselves only grow food at a certain predetermined rate; around 0.4 food per second, stockpiled invisibly on the farm, up to a cap of 15 food. A normal villager with all economic upgrades and a short walking distance will outpace the regeneration of the farm, deplete this reserve, and cap out at the farm's maximum food generation rate of 0.4 food per second.

^ The 'Villager' state is a rare state that is only available when a Villager is first produced (without setting a rally point to a task) and while attacking. Since villagers do not collect resources while attacking, and will swap to a different state if tasked to do anything else, this statistic is usually irrelevant, and is included merely as a curiosity.

Buildings

A Villager building a Blacksmith.

Villagers can construct the following buildings:

• Dark Age
• Feudal Age
• Castle Age
• Imperial Age

• House (unavailable to the Huns)
• Mill (unavailable to the Poles)
• Folwark (Poles only)
• Farm
• Mining Camp
• Lumber Camp
• Mule Cart (Armenians and Georgians only)
• 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 (Cumans only)
• 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
• Fortified Church (Armenians and Georgians only)
• University
• Town Center
• Harbor (Malay only, requires Thalassocracy)
• Krepost (Bulgarians only)

• Wonder
• Keep (unavailable to several civilizations)
• Bombard Tower (unavailable to several civilizations)
• Feitoria (Portuguese only)
• Caravanserai (Hindustanis and Persians only)

Efficiency of building with multiple workers. X axis: number of workers, Y axis: portion of original building time.

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 $\tfrac{3t}{n+2}$. 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 player will only pay 244 stone to fully repair a Frank 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 and discount rules: It costs 550 wood and no stone to repair fully. Discounts for Town Centers apply to repairing as well. The discounts of Bulgarians and Incas are irrelevant since the Town Center already costs no stone to repair. The Malian and Briton discounts reduce repairing cost by 15% and 50% respectively.

When allied with the Georgians, repairing buildings further costs -25%; that is, repairing from 1 hit point to full health costs only 37.5% of the originally required resources, further stacking with civilization bonuses. The bonus does not apply to repairing units.

Rate

For buildings, the first Villager will repair 750 hit points per minute, and any additional Villager will add 375 hit points per 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
Technologies
Carry capacity	Wheelbarrow (+25%)* Hand Cart (+50%) Heavy Plow (+1, Farmers only)
Wood gathering speed	Double-Bit Axe (+20%, +28% for the Armenians) Bow Saw (+20%, +28% for the Armenians) Two-Man Saw (+10%)
Stone gathering speed	Stone Mining (+15%, +21% for the Armenians) Stone Shaft Mining (+15%)
Gold gathering speed	Gold Mining (+15%, +21% for the Armenians) Gold Shaft Mining (+15%, +21% for the Armenians) Grand Trunk Road (+10%, Hindustanis only)
Resource generation	Burgundian Vineyards (0.017 gold per second while farming, Burgundians only) Paper Money (0.0385 gold per wood, Vietnamese only)
Hit points	Loom (+15) Supremacy (+40, Spanish only) Sanctity (+15, Bohemians only)
Attack	Sappers (+15 attack against buildings and fortifications each; +3 attack vs rams) Forging (+1, Incas since the Castle Age only) Iron Casting (+1, Incas only) Blast Furnace (+2, Incas only) Supremacy (+6, Spanish only)
Armor	Loom (+1/+2) Scale Mail Armor (+1/+1, Incas since the Castle Age only) Chain Mail Armor (+1/+1, Incas only) Plate Mail Armor (+1/+2, Incas only) Supremacy (+2/+2, Spanish only)
Speed	Wheelbarrow (+10%) Hand Cart (+10%) Fervor (+15%, Bohemians only)
Conversion defense	Devotion (+1 min, +1 max) Faith (+4 min, +4 max) Heresy (die upon getting converted) First Crusade (+4 min, +4 max, Sicilians only)
Construction speed	Treadmill Crane (+20%)
Other	Flemish Revolution (turns them into Flemish Militia, Burgundians only) Mahayana (Villagers take -10% population space, Bengalis only)
Civilization bonuses
Carry capacity	Aztecs (+3) Dravidians (+15, Fishermen only) Goths (+15, Hunters only) Khmer (not applicable for Farmers)
Speed	Berbers (+5% in Dark Age, +10% since Feudal Age)
Food gathering speed	Britons (+25%, Shepherds only) Franks (+15%, Foragers only) Mongols (+40%, Hunters only) Romans (+5%) Slavs (+15%, Farmers only)
Wood gathering speed	Celts (+15%) Romans (+5%)
Stone gathering speed	Koreans (+20%) Romans (+5%)
Gold gathering speed	Romans (+5%) Turks (+20%)
Resource generation	Poles (0.33 gold per stone) Portuguese (0.33 wood per food, Foragers only)
Attack	Goths (+5 vs Wild Boars, Elephants, and Rhinoceroses) Magyars (+30 vs Wolves)
Regeneration	Poles (10/15/20 HP per minute in Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age)
Cost	Hindustanis (-8%/13%/18%/23% in Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age)
Creation speed	Persians (+5%/10%/15%/20% in Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age)
Line of Sight	Koreans (+3)
Construction speed	Romans (+5%) Sicilians (+50% for Castles; +100% for Town Centers, does not apply to First Town Center) Spanish (+30%; reduced to +20% for Wonders; reduced to 0% for First Town Center)
Other	Bengalis (Town Centers spawn 2 Villagers when the next Age is reached) Chinese (First Town Center constructed spawns 3 Villagers) Georgians (Fortified Churches provide Villagers in a 19 tile square with +10% work rate; Villagers receive -20% {-40% instead of -25%} damage when fighting from higher elevation) Khmer (Farmers drop off their food continuously in the stockpile directly, but work 5% slower) Malians (Gold Miners drop off +10% gold) Mayans (First Town Center constructed spawns 1 Villager; Villagers extract upto +15% resources from all sources) Romans (+5% repair speed) Tatars (Shepherds extract upto +57% food; Villagers deal +20% {+50% instead of +25%} damage when attacking from higher elevation)

Civilization bonuses

• Bohemians: Mining Camp technologies are free.
• Burgundians: Technologies that benefit Villager working speed and carry capacity are available one Age earlier, and cost -40% food.
• Burmese: Researching Devotion and Faith is 50% cheaper. Lumber Camp technologies are free.
• Celts: Villagers can convert herdable animals even if enemy units are next to them.
• Chinese: Technologies that benefit Villagers are 5%/10%/15% cheaper in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
• Franks: Mill upgrades are free.
• Goths: Loom is researched instantly.
• Khmer: Maximum 5 Villagers can garrison in Houses.
• Persians: Researching Loom, Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart is 5%/10%/15%/20% faster in the Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
• Spanish: Researching technologies that benefit Villagers provides 20 gold each.
• Vietnamese: Technologies that benefit Villager working speed and carry capacity cost no wood.
• Vikings: Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart are free.

Team bonuses

• Bulgarians: Researching Infantry technologies at the Blacksmith is 80% faster for the Incas.
• Georgians: Repairing costs -25% resources.
• Lithuanians: Researching Heresy, Devotion, and Faith is 20% faster. Researching Sanctity and Fervor is also 20% faster for the Bohemians.
• Portuguese: Technologies that benefit Villagers are researched 25% faster.
• Teutons: Villagers are more resistant to conversion.

Changelog

The Age of Kings

• Villagers have +3 attack against stone defense.
• Mongols: Hunters work 50% faster.
• Turks: Gold Miners work 15% faster.
• Goths: Villagers have +6 attack against Siege weapons.

The Conquerors

• Villagers have +6 attack against stone defense.
• Heresy introduced.
• Aztecs: Villagers carry +5 resources.
• Goths: Villagers lose attack bonus against Siege weapons.
• Koreans: Initially, Villagers have +2 Line of Sight. With patch 1.0b, Villagers have +3 Line of Sight.
• Mayans: Natural resources last 20% longer.

The Forgotten

• Villagers can be garrisoned in rams.
• Franks: Foragers work 25% faster.
• Incas: Villagers are affected by Blacksmith upgrades.
• Indians: Villagers are 5%/10%/15%/20% cheaper in the Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age. Fishermen work 15% faster and carry +15 food.
• Koreans: Villagers build fortifications 33% faster.
• Mayans: Natural resources last 15% longer.
• Slavs: Farmers work 15% faster.

The African Kingdoms

• Indians: Villagers are 10%/15%/20%/25% cheaper in the Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
• Turks: Gold Miners work 20% faster.

Rise of the Rajas

• Koreans: With patch 5.8, towers are built 5% faster.

Definitive Edition

• Koreans: Villagers no longer build fortifications faster.
• Persians: Upon release, Villagers in the Dark Age are created 5% faster, and Loom in the Dark Age is researched 5% faster. With update 36906, both changes are reverted.
• Slavs: Farmers work 10% faster.
• Khmer: With update 34699, Farmers no longer need to drop off their food, it automatically adds to the player's stockpile. This bonus also applies in Full Tech Tree games. With update 35584, the bonus no longer applies in Full Tech Tree games. With update 36906, farmers work 3% slower. With update 42848, farmers work 5% slower.
• Vietnamese: With update 35584, technologies that benefit Villager working speed and carry capacity cost no wood.
• Mongols: With update 35584, Hunters work 40% faster.
• With update 36906, Fishermen can drop their food on Docks.
• Indians: With update 36906, Fishermen work 10% faster instead of 15% and no longer carry +15 food.
• With update 37650, male and female Villagers have the same length of attack animation of 1.275 seconds (tweaked from 1.05 and 1.5 seconds, respectively).
• Aztecs: With update 42848, Villagers carry +3 resources.
• Portuguese: With update 42848, technologies are researched 30% faster as a civilization bonus.

Lords of the West

• Burgundians: Initially economic technologies cost normal resources. With update 47820, they cost -50% food.
• Franks: Foragers work 15% faster.
• Incas: with update 47820, Villagers are only affected by Blacksmith upgrades starting in the Castle Age.

Dawn of the Dukes

• Poles: Stone Miners generate a trickle of 0.5 gold per stone.

Dynasties of India

• Burgundians: With update 66692, economic technologies cost -40% food. With update 78174, economic technologies cost -33% food.
• Poles: With update 73855, Stone Miners generate a trickle of 0.33 gold per stone.
• Portuguese: With update 73855, Foragers generate a trickle of 0.33 wood per food. As a team bonus, technologies that benefit Villagers are researched 25% faster, replacing the corresponding civilization bonus.
• Hindustanis: Originally, Villagers cost -10/15/20/25% in the Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age. With update 78174, Villagers cost -5/10/15/20% in the Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
• Berbers: With update 81058, Villager movement speed bonus adjusted to 5% in Dark Age and 10% in Feudal Age onwards.
• With update 81058, Sappers research now also adds +3 bonus damage against rams.
• Malians: With update 81058, the 30% longer lasting Gold Mines bonus is changed to Villagers dropping off 15% more gold.

Return of Rome

• Malians: With update 87863, Gold Miners drop off more gold bonus reduced from 15% to 10%.
• With update 93001, Villagers gain +6 attack against the Heavy siege armor class.

The Mountain Royals

• Slavs: With update 95810, Farmers work 15% faster.
• Persians: With update 95810, Villagers are created 5% faster in the Dark Age and Loom is researched 5% faster in the Dark Age.
• Hindustanis: With update 99311, Villagers cost -8%/-13%/-18%/-23% in the Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.

Victors and Vanquished

• The Drop Off and Seek Shelter commands introduced and added to the Villager's command panel.

Work rate display

The work rate icon

If Extended Unit Stats is enabled in the Interface section of the Options Menu, along with other new icons, a work rate icon depicted by a hammer also appears in the Villager's information panel at the bottom of the user interface. The number next to the icon specifies the work rate per minute, accounting for bonuses at play and technologies researched. For eg, an unupgraded Forager may show 18.6, meaning the Villager will collect at a rate of 18.6 food per minute, not including walking distance, while a Repairer will show 750 to denote that the Villager will repair 750 hit points per minute. A Builder shows 60, indicating "build time completed" per minute. Researching Treadmill Crane increases this by 20% to 72. An unassigned Villager has a work rate of 60, which is only applicable when collecting food from predator animals, which is by default not possible without modifying the game.

Work rates per minute of various types of unupgraded Villagers are depicted next to the hammer icon

History

“

The great percentage of people in the Middle Ages were peasants, serfs, and lowly villagers who gathered the food and did most of the work. They supported a relatively small class of religious leaders and nobleman who controlled the wealth and power of the community. The life of the peasant and serf was hard but improved as feudalism gave way to social systems that allowed the workers to retain more of their produce. Many peasants moved into the middle class of the growing cities. Those who remained on the farms saw their production and wealth increase thanks to specialization and many technological improvements in agriculture.

”

Trivia

• Villagers were the only unit in the game to be either male or female. With the release of Lords of the West, however, this exclusivity was shared with the Flemish Militia.
• The Villager is one of only four trainable land units to have two different designs, the other being the Monk, the Trade Cart, and the Flemish Militia.
• Male and female Villagers use different weapons when they fight or gather. Male Villagers use a poniard while female Villagers use a knife. Male Villagers use a makhaira sword in the Definitive Edition.
• The female Villager is one of only three regular female units in the game, the other being the Gbeto and the female Flemish Militia.
• With just 25 base hit points, the Villager is the weakest of all units.
• When garrisoned inside a building, a Villager will add 2.5 damage per second worth of arrows to the building's attack. This value does not increase with upgrades such as Fletching, Chemistry etc.
• Since update 81058, a new option is added to the settings under the Game tab, where the player can enable "Idle Pointers" which changes the sprites of idle Villagers by adding a glaring exclamation mark on top. This can be toggled on or off in active games. Similar graphical changes were available prior to this only as user-made mods.
• Since update 107882, the "grab your pitchforks" cheat code turns all of the player's Villagers into Flemish Militia, while the "flemish reformation" cheat code turns all of the player's Villagers into Monks.

Gallery

Villager sprites from Definitive Edition, involving many tasks.

A group of female Villagers.

A group of male Villagers.

Villagers performing various tasks.

Spanish Villagers with Supremacy defeat a fully upgraded Frankish Paladin with minimal losses.

Female Villager 3D model.

A render of the female Villager model.

A render of the male Villager model.

The idle Villager pointers on idle Villagers, if enabled

Many Villagers in the main menu background added by the Villager event

Boxer Villager skin from the Villager event

Drop Off command icon

Seek Shelter command icon