Worker

This article is about the unit type in Age of Mythology. For other uses of the term, see Villager.

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

Trade units and Fishing Ships are not considered Villager-type units.

Units

• Greeks: Villagers
• Egyptians: Laborers
• Norse: Gatherers (standard) and Dwarves
• Atlanteans: Citizens, and their upgraded form, Citizen Heroes
• Chinese (Immortal Pillars): Peasants and Kuafus
• Chinese (Tale of the Dragon): Peasants

Differences

All workers 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, Houses, and Ox Carts.
  • Gatherers have slightly below average gathering 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 twice 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 units.
• Chinese Peasants in Immortal Pillars are cheaper but less efficient than other worker units. However, they are supported by the Kuafu, who excel at constructing buildings, and at collecting wood and gold. Kuafu are also reasonably effective in combat, but they are far more expensive than Peasants and take up three worker and population slots.
• Chinese Peasants in Tale of the Dragon 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.

Work rates table

The gather rates are measured in resources collected per minute. The construction rates are measured as the number of 100 seconds taken to complete a Wonder, except for the Norse, for whom the comparison is made between the time taken to complete a House with that for a Greek Villager.

The resource cost calculation is taken as sum of $food+wood+gold+10\times favor$ costs.

Civilization	Unit	Training			Gather rates per minute						Construction time
		Res	Pop	Time	Hunt	Livestock	Berry	Farm	Tree	Gold
Greeks	Villager	50	1	15	60	54	48	42	60	51	54
Egyptians	Laborer	50	1	15	54	48.6	43.2	37.8	54	46.2	72
Norse	Gatherer	50	1	15	57	51.6	45.6	39.9	57	48.6	54
	Dwarf	60	1	15	48	43.2	38.4	33.6	48	61.2	54
Atlanteans	Citizen	100	2	25	90	81	72	63	90	76.8	36
	Citizen (Hero)	195	2	25	99	89.1	79.2	69.3	99	84.48	32.73
Chinese	Peasant	40	1	15	48	43.2	38.4	33.6	48	40.8	63.53
	Kuafu	320	3	30	90	81	72	63	180	153	18
	Kuafu (Hero)	N/A	3	N/A	135	121.5	108	94.5	270	229.5	12

Most workers can carry 15 food, 10 wood, or 10 gold at a time. Atlantean workers do not carry resources and instead immediately deposit upon collection. Kuafus and Kuafu Heroes can carry 20 and 50 of any resource respectively.

Comparison table

Considering the Greek Villager as the standard:

Civilization	Unit	Training			Gather rates per minute						Construction speed
		Res	Pop	Time	Hunt	Livestock	Berry	Farm	Tree	Gold
Greeks	Villager	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Egyptians	Laborer	0%	0%	0%	-10%	-10%	-10%	-10%	-10%	-9%	-25%
Norse	Gatherer	0%	0%	0%	-5%	-4.5%	-5%	-5%	-5%	-4.7%	0%
	Dwarf	+20%	0%	0%	-20%	-20%	-20%	-20%	-20%	+20%	0%
Atlanteans	Citizen	+100%	+100%	+67%	+50%	+50%	+50%	+50%	+50%	+50.6%	+50%
	Citizen (Hero)	+290%	+100%	+67%	+65%	+65%	+65%	+65%	+65%	+65.6%	+65%
Chinese	Peasant	-20%	0%	0%	-20%	-20%	-20%	-20%	-20%	-20%	-15%
	Kuafu	+540%	+200%	+100%	+50%	+50%	+50%	+50%	+200%	+200%	+200%
	Kuafu (Hero)	N/A	N/A	N/A	+125%	+125%	+125%	+125%	+350%	+350%	+350%

Note: The Clay Peasant is identical to the Peasant in all its work attributes.

Construction

When constructing buildings, each additional builder builds at a reduced rate. Thus, it is most efficient to construct buildings with a single builder. Multiple builders should be used for buildings which must be erected quickly to gain a timing advantage, such as the first Temple, Town Centers, Fortress-type buildings, and the Wonder.

The formula for construction time is:

$T_{n}={\frac {T_{1}}{{\big (}1+0.6\times min(n-1,1)+0.3\times max(n-2,0){\big )}}}$

where,

$T_{1}=$Time taken by one builder

$n=$Number of builders with the same build speed

Further statistics

God bonuses

• Odin: +10% food gathering rate from hunting animals.
• Gaia: Regenerate 1 hit point per second when on Lush. Start the game with two Citizens (Hero), and promoting Citizens to Citizen (Hero) costs -25%.
• Fuxi: Yin Blessing increases gather rates by 10%.
• Shennong: Workers build Farms on Favored Land near instantly; Farms available in the Archaic Age.

General technologies

• Hand Axe, Bow Saw, and Carpenters: +10%/+15%/+20% wood gather rates respectively, +5 wood carrying capacity each.
• Pickaxe, Shaft Mine, and Quarry: +10%/+15%/+20% gold gather rates respectively, +5 gold carrying capacity each.
• Husbandry: +10% herdable food gather rate, +15 food carry capacity (of all types).
• Plow, Irrigation, and Flood Control: +10% Farm food gather rate.
• Survival Equipment: +25% hit points, +25% melee attack, +50% ranged (anti-animal) attack. (Since Retold)
• Hunting Dogs: +30% hunted food gather rate. (Before Retold)

Myth technologies

• Oracle (Apollo): +5 Line of Sight.
• Sun Ray (Apollo): +10% ranged (anti-animal) attack. Attacks reveal enemy units for a short time. (Grants 25 Line of Sight around the target for 6 seconds)
• Dionysia (Dionysus): +5% hit points.
• Divine Blood (Aphrodite): +20% movement speed, construct +15% faster, and +10 carrying capacity for food, wood, and gold.
• Freyr's Gift (Freyr): +10% hit points. (since update 17.27932)
• Winter Harvest (Skadi): +20% Farm food gather rate, +10% food gather rate from other sources.
• Channels (Gaia): +15% movement speed on Lush.
• Chasing the Sun (Houtu): +10% build rate.
• Abundance (Houtu): +5% resources dropped off in Favored Land.
• Vibrant Land (Goumang): +15% wood gather rate, can use Houses as drop sites for wood.
• Leizu's Silk (Huangdi): +10% hit points and -10% hack vulnerability.
• Slash and Burn (Zhurong): +15% Farm gather rate.
• Pig Sticker (Thor): 5× damage vs. huntables, gather food from hunted animals +10% faster. (Before Retold)

Relics

The following Relics benefit worker units:

• Black Lotus: +10% farming rate.
• Blue Crystal Shard: +5% gold and wood gathering rates.
• Charon's Obol: 50% cost refunded on death.
• Fetters of Fenrir: +30% attack.
• Harmonia's Necklace: +10% gold gathering rate.
• Hestia's Hearth: -5% training time.
• Kithara of Apollo: +10% movement speed.
• Pelt of Argus: +6 Line of Sight.
• Pygmalion's Statue: +40% hit points.
• Sistrum of Bast: -15% cost.
• Staff of Dionysus: Regenerate 1.0 hit points per second.

Trivia

• Prior to Retold, the icons only depict only male workers.
• Originally, workers had the ability to fish. This feature was cut.
• Laborers and Gatherers were originally simply called "Villagers", before being changed to their current names so their cultures could be unique.
• In Retold, when worker units are idle, they will have a "zzz" effect over their heads to indicate this, and will have two different colors depending on the nature of the idling. If a worker was placed into a map without being assigned to any task, the effect will be team-colored, while workers who are spawned from a Town Center or were previously working on a task before idling will have a red effect.
• In Retold, the resource panel also shows the workers assigned to each resource.
• In Retold, when the player's worker units, Fishing Ships, and Caravans are attacked by enemies, they will hear a unique attack warning sound.

Gallery

Idling Villagers, including an idling graphic over their heads, in Retold

All worker units in Retold

All worker units in Tale of the Dragon

Greek Villagers in the original game

Egyptian Laborers in the original game

Norse Gatherers in the original game

Norse Dwarves in the original game

Atlantean Citizen, with pack mule, in The Titans

Atlantean Citizen Hero, with pack mule, in The Titans

Chinese Peasants in Tale of the Dragon