Wild animal

A wolf, one of the most common wild animals encountered.

“	Warning: You are being attacked by wild animals!!!	”
—Age of Empires II notification

Wild animals, also commonly called Predators, are aggressive animals in all the Age of Empires series games except Age of Empires III that are found randomly around the map and do not belong to any player faction.

They are distinct from other animals due to their hostile nature, attacking the player's civilian and most military units that enter their Line of Sight.

Age of Empires

Wild animals in Age of Empires can also be hunted for food. They are distinguished from wild animals of the other games in their tendency to attack nearly all nearby units of a player, including religious units, ships, and siege weapons. They are also distinguished by their tendency to pursue and kill nearby prey animals.

• Alligator (before the Definitive Edition only)
• Lion
• Crocodile (since the Definitive Edition only)

Since Return of Rome, all predators of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition are also available.

Age of Empires II

In Age of Empires II, all wild animals have the Predator Animals armor class. They come in many varieties (see below) depending on the chosen map, though all wild animals have 25 hit points regardless of species.

Almost all wild animals that occur in random map games (those being all except the Dire and Rabid Wolves) are identical in almost all aspects (HP, Attack, Speed and LOS), an exception being the Bear, whose Line of sight spans 10 instead of 12 tiles.

They are hostile to most units, especially Villagers, who can usually be killed very easily by them in the early game if they land the first hit. Magyar Villagers, however, kill all wild animals with one strike due to their civilization bonus.

Researching Loom at the Town Center as soon as possible can vastly improve a Villager's survival chance when attacked by a wild animal, though they are still vulnerable if the animals attack in groups. The higher the difficulty, the higher the aggression radius of them against Villagers.

Wild animals will not attack Kings, Trade Carts, Monks (including Missionaries), Scouts (Scout Cavalry and Eagle Scout lines and Horse, Bactrian Camel, and Camel scout units), or any siege weapons (save for Ballista Elephants and Flaming Camels).

Wild animals will always hide in the fog of war, regardless of the map's exploration area. They are not considered "huntables" and as such will yield no food when slain.

There are some maps with relative abundance of wild animals (Gold Rush for example) and in these kind of maps, it is possible for players to try to lure a pack of them against an opponent, in a tactic known as the " Wolf Rush". It mainly consist of marking the points where the scout finds these animals with a Palisade Wall foundation, and then send either a foot archer or an infantry unit to lure them.

Introduction	Icon	Name
The Age of Kings		Dire Wolf
		Grey Wolf
		Rabid Wolf
The Conquerors		Jaguar
The Forgotten		Brown Bear
The African Kingdoms		Crocodile
		Lion
Rise of the Rajas		Komodo Dragon
		Tiger
Definitive Edition		Snow Leopard
The Three Kingdoms		Arabian Wolf
		Black Bear
		Polar Bear

Age of Mythology

The wild animals of Age of Mythology can be hunted for food just like those of Age of Empires. Unlike the other games, predators stop pursuing if the target leaves their Line of Sight for long enough, and return to their starting position.

• Arctic Wolf
• Crocodile
• Bear
• Hyena
• Lion
• Lizard
• Panda Bear
• Polar Bear
• Tiger
• Wolf

Age of Empires IV

There is one predator in Age of Empires IV:

• Wolf

Trivia

• In Age of Empires II, due to a bug, a player would receive a wild animal attack notification if they were attacked by a War Elephant in The Age of Kings.
• In Age of Empires III, wild animals are supplanted by treasure guardians which strike back only when they are attacked, rather than automatically.

Animals in Age of Empires IV
Herdable animals	Herdable Sheep · Cattle (Malians only)
Timid huntables	Huntable Deer
Aggressive huntables	Huntable Boar
Wild animals	Wolf
Fish	Fish · Shoreline Fish
Cut animals	Bear · Crocodile · Fox · Zebra